After acquiring the Marcel Duchamp collection of Belgian Ronny van de Velde in 1997, the Staatliche Museum Schwerin also set up a Duchamp Research Center in 2009. Besides its own scholarly examination of the collection-which with about ninety works by the artist constitutes the largest Duchamp collection in Germany-the center also provides a platform for Duchamp research in general. An accompanying monograph series, Poeisis, was initiated in 2011. Whereas the first volume was devoted to, among other things, the 2009 symposium "Where Do We Go From Here?" the second volume assembles essays written by the longstanding Duchamp expert Thomas Girst that were first published elsewhere. In addition, interviews by Duchamp's contemporaries on the artist as well as about sixty quotations from famous fellow peers serve to paint a very personal picture of this singular artist.

Text by: Thomas Girst