Unpacking Duchamp is a highly innovative and breakthrough investigation into Duchamp's transformations of the conditions and status of twentieth-century art, art making, and art viewing. Judovitz approaches Duchamp's "oeuvre" from many interrelated angles, offering detailed and illuminating analyses of individual works, all the while contextualizing her discussions through considerable research and erudition. Her mode of inquiry is at once historical and philosophical -- perfect for the study of Duchamp. Intellectually refined, the book is clear, well-written, with many dashes of humor.

Unpacking Duchamp will appeal to culture critics, historians, and theoreticians, as well as to artists and writers. It is a must read for anyone interested in the contemporary conditions of art.

Dalia Judovitz has written a challenging, stimulating and exhaustively researched book on Duchamp. Her take on many aspects of Duchamp's career is fresh and imaginative, as for example in her close reading of his word play and ready-mades. After the comprehensive studies of Duchamp's ready-mades by Antin, Bauer, Caws, Compton, de Duve, James et al this is very impressive.

A key chapter on Art and Economics, cultural and economic value, as one Duchamp scholar observes, "opens up a whole new area of investigation. Her discussion of the Monte-Carlo Bond and the less well known Drain Stopper which she cleverly compares to Renaissance Art Medals will intrigue all those who are seriously interested in Duchamp.

This is a book to be read and re-read.

With so much of the literature available on Marcel Duchamp offering accounts that neither seem to fully resonate with the evidence of the work or with the spirit of the artist himself, I find Unpacking Duchamp to be a refreshing exception. Not only does this book live up to its title's promise of showing us how to "unpack" the master's enigmatic thinking, it does so with such wit and grace that I suspect even he would tip his hat to its author. Taking a body of his work that often appears overly difficult and elusive to enter into, Ms. Judovitz does the nearly impossible, gently prying it open in ways that are beautifully lucid, accessible, and free of jargon, yet, entirely up to the challenge of her ever-moving subject. She constructs readings of the work that go beyond analysis and interpretation to become aesthetic acts in their own right --- reciprocating one that generously enable her readers to enter into and perform their own Duchampian thinking, in ways that genuinely illuminate and bring it to life. This is potentially Duchamp's most important legacy to us but an aspect of his work that often seems poorly understood by many specialists.

In short, I'm extremely glad to finally have a book like this, and I look forward to rereading it in the future. If you are considering it, I would say that it's a challenging read, but one I would strongly recommend if you are at all interested in Duchamp or just interested in exploring an extraordinary mode of thought and creativity. While I do have some knowledge of twentieth-century art, this was not really essential to my appreciation of the book. Its interest and appeal should be broad-based and not limited to either an art audience or one of largely academic interests.