Text for a Workshop at the Art Institute Of Boston (1998)
(see the complete text here)
In October 1998 I gave lessons and a workshop at the Art Institute Of Boston. The main topic was to study Marcel Duchamp as a role model. How did he survive as an artist? How did he manage to gain control over the reception of his oeuvre? And – what can we learn from him today?
In my highly personal approach I have a perception of Duchamp as a MULTIPRENEUR – a phrase coined by business writer Tom Gorman:
Multipreneuring means more than one undertaking. The play on the word entrepreneur is obvious: to succeed in business today, and even in many non-business fields, you have to be something of an entrepreneur, that is one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business enterprise. This is largely what multipreneurs do. They organize their resources, manage their careers, and assume sensible risks. (Tom Gorman, Multipreneuring, NY 1996)
Applying this concept to Marcel Duchamp’s life, I choose four key roles that he supposedly played in his life (among other roles) and analyze these:
– Pseudo-Scientist
– Joueur (or Gambler)
– Recycler and
– Director.
As a conclusion of the short investigation there is ARTIST as an acronym:
A stands for art in a very broadened sense
R stands for reputation
T stands for thread
I stands for intuition
S stands for strategy
T stands for trust .