Quiz: who said it – Dalí, Duchamp or celeb? | Blog

Quiz: who said it – Dalí, Duchamp or celeb?

By Sandra MacKenzie

Published 5 October 2017

Do you know your Dalí from your Duchamp? How about your Duchamp from your Donald Trump or Madonna? They may not have had Twitter to broadcast their musings, but both Dalí and Duchamp were notorious for their colourful statements… can you pick them out from these other quotable figures?

Our Dalí / Duchamp exhibition explores the surprising relationship between the showman Surrealist and the father of conceptual art, suggesting that they might not be quite so different as they first appear. Both were notable for a mischievous wit and a fiercely non-conformist approach – sometimes resulting in controversial and eminently quotable musings that could easily have been said decades later.

We’ve taken musings from these two masters of 20th-century art and mixed them up with quotes from famously outspoken celebrities. Can you spot the difference and guess who said what?

Take the quiz:

<section><h2>Who said it: Dalí, Duchamp or... Donald Trump?</h2><p><div>Can you tell the actual artist quotes apart from the decoys? Time to test your knowledge of two masters of modern art: Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp. </div></p></section><section><h2>“I've never worked for a living. I consider working for a living slightly imbecilic from an economic point of view.”</h2><p></p></section><section><h3>“It is not an easy matter to hold the full attention of the public for a whole half-hour. I, however, have succeeded in doing it every day for the past 20 years.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“I consider myself to be an all-around genius who just happens to play chess”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“It’s a little difficult for the public to come in and understand it, to accept it. But I don’t mind, I don’t care, because I did it with great pleasure.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing ever since.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“The reason my hair looks so neat all the time is because I don’t have to deal with the elements.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“Posterity is a real bitch who cheats some, reinstates others, and is also free to change its mind every 50 years”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“Modesty is not my specialty.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>“The minute you do something, you are an artist; you do not sell your work, but you do the action. In other words, art is action, activity of any kind.”</h3><p></p></section><section><h3>"In Roman times the artist would contemplate proportions and colours. Now there is only one important colour… green"</h3></section><section><h3>“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”</h3></section><section><h3>“Everyone throughout the world, and especially in America, wants to know the secret formula for so much success.”</h3></section><section><h3>"Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer."</h3></section><section><h3>"My own influence has always outdistanced me to such a point that it has been impossible for me to convince anyone that this influence came from me."</h3></section><section><h3>"I don't believe in the word 'being'. The idea of being is a human invention."</h3></section><section><p><div>Chin up – after all, as JFK  once said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Or was that his brother Bobby? We’re probably asking the wrong person.</div></p></section><section><p><div>Identifying quote attributions might not be your greatest strength, but really, who needs to tell these things apart anymore? Maybe this whole quiz was just fake news...</div></p></section><section><p><div>“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it” might seem like the Dali quote most appropriate for your score, but sadly, he probably never said it. You already knew that though, right?</div></p></section><section><h3></h3><p><div>Duchamp once said that in the life of any genius, there are really only four or five things that really count – the rest is just filler. This counts, you quote-identifying genius. This definitely counts. </div></p></section>

Dalí / Duchamp is in the Weston Galleries at the RA from 7 October 2017 – 3 January 2018

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Quiz: who said it – Dalí, Duchamp or celeb?

Quiz: who said it – Dalí, Duchamp or celeb?

By Sandra MacKenzie

Published 5 October 2017

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