In Advance / en Avance, a talk with art historian and author Thierry de Duve and Darling Green about Marcel Duchamp and Marcel Broodthaers as seen through de Duve’s recent book Duchamp’s Telegram takes place at April 15, 2026 at the Emily Harvey Foundation.


In 1917, Marcel Duchamp sent out a ‘telegram’ in the guise of the photo of a urinal called Fountain and signed R. Mutt. When it arrived at its destination a good forty years later it was both celebrated and vilified as proclaiming that anything could be art; from that point on, the art world reconfigured itself as post-Duchamp. In fact, with Fountain Duchamp had announced that the art world had switched from the Beaux-Arts to what Thierry de Duve calls the ‘Art-in-General’ system as early as the 1880s.


Duchamp’s Telegram sheds new light on Fountain’s prehistory as well on its delayed reception, particularly by Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, according to de Duve one of the rare artists of his generation to have understood the 'telegram' accurately and fruitfully.


Special thanks to Marian Goodman Gallery and Goodman Wines for generously supporting this event.