The image of Marcel Duchamp as a brilliant but laconic dilettante has come to dominate the literature surrounding the artist’s life and work. His intellect and strategic brilliance were vaunted by his friends and contemporaries, and served as the basis of the mythology that has been coalescing around the artist and his work since before his death in 1968. Though few would challenge these attributions of intelligence, few have likewise considered the role that Duchamp’s prodigious mind played in bringing about the present state of his career. Many of the signal features of Duchamp’s artistic career: his avoidance of the commercial art market, his cultivation of patrons, his “retirement” from art and the secret creation and posthumous unveiling of his Étant Donnés: 1° la chute d’eau/2° le gaz d’éclairage, all played key roles in the development of the Duchampian mythos. Rather than treating Duchamp’s current art historical position as the fortuitous result of chance, this thesis attempts to examine the many and subtle ways in which Duchamp worked throughout his life to control how he and his work were and are perceived. Such an examination necessarily begins at the start of his relationship with the general and specialist media, through the auspices of his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. This is followed by an examination of Duchamp’s decades-long relationship with the press through the interviews given during his life. Duchamp’s concern for his physical legacy is explored next, initially through his relationships with his two dominant patrons, Walter and Louise Arensberg and Katherine Dreier. Not only did he act as advisor and dealer in the development of both prestigious collections, Duchamp had the privileged position of participant in the negotiations surrounding the disposition of the collections he had helped to build. Duchamp’s concern for the preservation of his physical legacy continued after the installation of his own work within major American museums. Thus, next is considered the development and effects of the two large-scale retrospectives of Duchamp’s work held within his lifetime. Finally is considered the role of Duchamp’s posthumous work, the Étant Donnés. Through the combination of secrecy and strategically revealed hints, Duchamp ensured that his final work would engender discussion long after his death.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The research called Snapshots Fragments; a study of Bergsonian cinematographic mechanism in the Marcel Duchamp´s painting Nude Descending a Staircase, is based in arts and reflections in which paint is performed a study of the cinematic mechanism concept from the philosopher, Henri Bergson. The research starts from the questions about wich intersection point can exist between an art work and a philosophical concept, that were deeply relevant and fruitful in modernity with contemporary developments in both discussions: arts and philosophy. In other words, this work was done intending to find similarities and differences between Duchamp\'s painting and Bergson´s concept. The research was developed aiming to enable the dialogue establishment between art and philosophy, given through an element that would be the embrace of both: the movie. / A pesquisa intitulada Fragmentos instantâneos, um estudo do mecanismo cinematográfico bergsoniano na pintura Nu descendo uma escada de Marcel Duchamp, trata-se de uma pesquisa em fundamentos e reflexões em artes, no qual são realizados estudos da pintura Nu descendo uma escada , de Marcel Duchamp, e do conceito de mecanismo cinematográfico, do filósofo Henri Bergson. A pesquisa inicia-se a partir dos questionamentos sobre a possibilidade de haver um ponto de intersecção entre um trabalho em arte e um conceito filosófico, os quais foram profundamente relevantes na modernidade e profícuos de desdobramentos na contemporaneidade e, nas discussões tanto no campo das artes, quanto na filosofia. Em outras palavras este trabalho foi realizado objetivando-se verificar em quais aspectos há convergências e divergências entre a pintura de Duchamp e o conceito de Bergson. A pesquisa foi realizada visando possibilitar a instauração de um diálogo entre arte e filosofia, dado através de um elemento que seria o amplexo de ambos, o cinema. / Mestre em Artes