Die Geschichte des Duchamp-schen Fahrrad-Rades ist häufig erzählt worden und hinlänglich bekannt. Ein Aspekt hat dabei jedoch oftmals zu wenig Berücksichtigung gefunden: die Benutzbarkeit dieser eigentümlichen Apparatur.

click to enlarge


Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Rhonda Roland Shearer hat in jüngster Zeit nachzuweisen versucht, daß es sich zumindest bei der zweiten, 1916 in New York entstandenen Version der Roue de Bicyclette um ein statisch äußerst fragiles Gebilde handelte. Könnte die Kombination von Vorderradgabel nebst Felge und einem Hocker, so fragt Roland Shearer
spekulierend, “an experiment and schematic diagram of chance” ⁽¹⁾sein? Duchamp selbst hatte zu Lebzeiten nicht davon abgelassen die Zufälligkeit und Unbedeutsamkeit seiner (Er-) Findung in ostentativer Gelassenheit beharrlich zu betonen. Auch wenn es sich heute um eine der zentralen Inkunabeln der Ready-made-Idee handelt, so hatte das Fahrrad-Rad, wie wir heute wissen, mit dem späteren Ready-made zunächst nur wenig gemein ⁽²⁾. Vielmehr sei es, so Duchamp, sowohl in der Version von 1913 als auch in jener von 1916 ein Objekt persönlicher Erbauung gewesen, “das ´gadget´ für einen Künstler in seinem Atelier ⁽³⁾.”

Eines der diesbezüglichen, von Duchamp in diversen Interviews immer wieder bemühten Statements sei hier nochmals – in jener Version die uns Arturo Schwarz überliefert hat – in Erinnerung gerufen: “To set the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day. I liked the idea of having a bicycle wheel in my studio. I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoyed looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movement of the flames ⁽⁴⁾.” Die Analogie zum Kaminfeuer war sicher nicht zufällig gewählt. Mit den im Kamin tanzenden Flammen benannte Duchamp ein gemeinhin nachvollziehbares Analogon für die ´kontemplative´ Wirkung, welche das sich drehende Speichenrad auf ihn, den damals ersten und einzigen Betrachter und Benutzer, ausgeübt haben soll; gleich, ob er sich dabei am ´optischen Flackern´ der Speichen oder der vermeintlichen, durch die wirkenden Fliehkräfte provozierten Instabilität der Apparatur erfreut hatte. Ob die Drehung der Felge “very soothing, very comforting ⁽⁵⁾” oder, wie es Roland Shearer vermutet, eher “hardly relaxing ⁽⁶⁾” ausfiel, sie gehörte ursprünglich zur Idee des Fahrrad-Rades.

click to enlarge


Marcel Duchamp,
Bicycle Wheel, 1913/64
© 2000 Succession Marcel
Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Müßte es dann nicht, so ließe sich nun fragen, erlaubt sein, das Rad entsprechend der Duchamp-schen Vorgabe noch heute drehen zu dürfen, um einen Gutteil der ursprünglichen Idee aktuell zu halten? Eine angesichts der musealen Wirklichkeit freilich recht theoretisch anmutende Frage. Wer heute, sei es in Köln, Paris, Philadelphia, New York, Stockholm oder anderswo in öffentlichen Sammlungen einer der Repliken des Fahrrad-Rades begegnet, sieht sich mit tabuisierenden Verbotsschildern, exponierenden Sockeln und maßregelnden Museumswärtern konfrontiert. Es entspricht dieses nicht nur der dem Museum inhärenten paradoxen Logik durch Konservierung Geschichte erfahrbar zu machen, sondern auch dem Bedeutungswandel, welchen die Idee des Fahrrad-Rades im Laufe der Jahrzehnte durchlaufen hat.

Es war das zwiespältige Verdienst von Sidney Janis anläßlich der Ausstellung “Climax in XXth
Century Art” zum Jahresbeginn 1951 eine erste Replik, also die dritte Version der Roue de Bicyclette, dem Ausstellungskontext erstmals zugeführt zu haben. Damit änderte sich sowohl dessen ideeler Status als auch die dem Objekt zugeschriebene Bedeutung und Funktion. Das vormalige “gadget” wurde faktisch als designiertes Ready-made in den Kanon der Werke Duchamps erhoben. Der Künstler selbst hatte die Inszenierung der Exponate in der Ausstellung vorgenommen und die Replik des Fahrrad-Rades zu Beginn des Jahres 1951 sowohl datiert als auch signiert und somit authentifiziert und autorisiert

click to enlarge

View of the Duchamp gallery,
“The Art of Assemblage”
(October 2 – November 12, 1961),
The Museum of Modern
Art, New York

Diese Janis-Replik wurde einige Jahre später, im Herbst 1961, in der legendäre Ausstellung “The Art of Assemblage” im Museum of Modern Art erneut und vollkommen unzweifelhaft im Kontext des Ready-mades zur Schau gestellt. Das Fahrrad-Rad wurde im Status eines ´museum piece´ in das Stadium einer visuellen Dokumentation des als historisch betrachteten Ready-made-Konzeptes transformiert ⁽⁸⁾ Es war nicht mehr notwendig, das Rad in Rotation zu versetzen, um sich daran zu delektieren; vielmehr war dieses sogar untersagt, wie der amerikanische Photograph Marvin Lazarus bezüglich eines Photoshootings mit Duchamp in der Ausstellung am 10. November 1961 berichtete: “I wanted to move the Roue de Bicyclette so that I could shoot through it. Duchamp moved it. […] the guard […] ran over to me and asked if I had moved the object. Before I could answer, with a little smile, Duchamp said quietly, ´No, I did it.´ The guard then turned on him and said, ´Don´t you know you´re not supposed to move things in a museum?´ Duchamp smiled again and speaking very softly said ´Well, I made the object – don´t you think it´s all right for me to move it a little?´ ⁽⁹⁾”
Eine interessante Frage, die der Künstler dem vermutlich verblüfften Museumsaufseher hier gestellt hatte. Hatte sich Duchamp auf seine nominelle und ideele Autorenschaft berufen dürfen, um sich bezüglich einer Benutzung zu previlegieren? Diese Frage erscheint zu gut, um sie durch eine Antwort zu verderben, wirft aber zugleich eine weitere, generellere Frage auf, die nicht unbeantwortet bleiben soll.

Was wäre für den gemeinen Ausstellungsbesucher und dessen ästhetische Erfahrung gewonnen, dürfte auch dieser das Rad in einer Ausstellung drehen? Meines Wissens trat in der gesamten Ausstellungsgeschichte der verschiedenen Repliken dieser Fall nur ein einziges Mal ein. Die Wanderausstellung “Art in Motion” (ndl.: “Bewogen Beweging”, dän. und schwed.: “Rörelse i Konsten”) präsentierte ab dem Frühjahr 1961 mit Stationen im Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, dem Moderna Museet, Stockholm, und dem Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebæk, neben anderen optischen und kinetischen Kunstwerken auch ein bereits im Mai 1960 von Ulf Linde und Per Olof Ultvedt nach der Version von 1916 angefertigtes Replikat der Roue de Bicyclette. Pontus Hulten,damals Direktor des Moderna, versicherte mir, daß die Ausstellungsbesucher das Rad hätten drehen dürfen ⁽¹⁰⁾.

Der Geist in jenen Tagen, so Hulten, sei eben ein anderer gewesen ⁽¹¹⁾. Ein anderer Geist? Eher wohl die Tatsache, daß der zunächst ohne jegliche Autorisierung ergestellten Kopie nur ein geringer finanzieller Wert beigemessen werden mußte, so daß die Kuratoren Hulten und Sandberg das Wagnis einer öffentlichen Benutzbarkeit eingehen konnten ohne allzu großen Schaden fürchten zu müssen ⁽¹²⁾.

Um zur gestellten Frage zurückzukommen: wenig wäre erreicht, dürfte der Betrachter das Rad in Bewegung versetzen. Ich möchte mich auf zwei Gründe beschränken. Der eine, das konservatorische Problem tangierende: Die Geschichte der partizipatorischen Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert zeigt, daß die taktil involvierten Betrachter stets entweder mit dem ihnen unterbreiteten Handlungsangebot überfordert waren oder die ihnen offerierten ahrungspotentiale nicht zu entfalten wußten. Allan Kaprow beispielsweise berichtete, daß die Besucher seines situationalen Environments Push and Pull – A Furniture Commedy for Hans Hofmann 1963 nicht ganz wie erhofft auf seine Offerte, die Möblierung des Environments zu verändern, reagiert hätten. Robert Rauschenbergs Black Market, in dem die Besucher Gegenstände austauschen und diesen Austausch in einer Zeichnung dokumentieren sollten, wurde 1961 bei der Ausstellung “Art in Motion” geplündert ⁽¹³⁾.

Ähnlich erging es auch George Brecht bei einer Ausstellung seines Cabinetaus dem Jahre 1959 – einem Wandschrank mit diversen Alltagsgegenständen. Die intendierte, an die taktile Partizipation der Betrachter rückgekoppelte epistemologische Erfahrung wurde hier durch übereifrige Zeitgenossen, die das Cabinet ausgeräumt hatten, zunichte gemacht ⁽¹⁴⁾.

click to enlarge

Edward Kienholz,
Cockeyed Jenny,
1961/62

Benvenuto Cellini,
Saliera, 1540-43,
Collection Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Wien

Bei der Eröffnung von Roxys, Edward Kienholz´ legendärem Bordell-Environment, urinierte 1963 in der Alexander Iolas Gallery gar einer der Vernissage-Gäste in den Ascheimer der Hurenfigur Cockeyed Jenny ⁽¹⁵⁾ Der zweite, den Ursprung des Fahrrad-Rades selbst betreffende Grund: die intime Ateliersituation in der Duchamp die Bewegung des Rades einst hatte kontemplieren können, ließe sich seitens der Besucher in einer weitläufigen Ausstellung kaum mehr nachempfinden. Es wäre, als erlaubte man den Besuchern des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien die vermeintlich authentische Benutzung der Saliera des Benvenuto Cellini, um dem längst eingestaubten François Primeur an dessen Prunktafel nachzueifern. Historische Ereignisse und Situationen lassen sich im Museum anschaulich darstellen, nachleben lassen sie sich nicht.

Duchamp selbst jedoch sollte noch einmal Gelegenheit erhalten, am Rad drehen zu dürfen. 1964 nämlich trat die Bedeutungsum- respektive -festschreibung der Roue de Bicyclette in eine vorläufig letzte Phase. Arturo Schwarz war von Duchamp autorisiert worden, neben exakten Repliken dreizehn anderer Werke auch eine Edition des Fahrrad-Rades in einer Auflage von acht plus zwei Exemplaren produzieren zu lassen. Die in den fünfziger Jahren vereinzelte Herstellung von Repliken der Roue erhielt damit eine neue Qualität und Quantität. Die Strategie nahezu identische Re-mades zur Repräsentation der Ready-made-Idee zu kreieren, mußte zwangsläufig zu Werkhaftigkeit, Authentizität, Originalität, Auratisierung, ja letztlich zur Artifiziellität führen. Jedes einzelne Exemplar der Schwarz-Edition hatte Duchamp, wie zuvor schon die durch Janis und Linde angefertigten Repliken, mit dem Menetekel der Metaphysik,der eigenhändigen Signatur versehen. Signaturen verbürgen, so sie dem Unterzeichnenden nicht gewaltsam abgepreßt werden (und hiervon ist im Falle Duchamp/Schwarz kaum auszugehen) gemeinhin den Willen ihres abwesenden Urhebers. Duchamp hatte bereitwillig sein nominelles Plazet unter die
von Schwarz zur endgültigen Autorisierung vorgelegten ´Dokumente´ gesetzt. Und schon bald traten die die Ideenwelt Duchamps repräsentierenden Fahrrad-Räder ihren Siegeszug durch die internationalen Museen an – Musealisierung inklusive.

click to enlarge

Photograph of Duchamp
wearing a lampshade with
Bicycle Wheel, 1951
© 2000 Succession Marcel
Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Duchamp mag in den sechziger Jahren weiterhin in New York und Neuilly gesessen und seine Zigarre schmauchend das Rad des für den Künstler vorgesehenen Belegexemplars aus der Schwarz-Edition in Rotation versetzt haben. Und dies vermutlich nicht ohne Amüsement über den Lauf der Dinge. Die museale Präsentation der multiplen Fahrrad-Räder indes stand – und steht bis heute – unter gänzlich anderen Vorzeichen. Der Museums- oder Galeriebesucher ist nicht mehr mit einem “gadget”, sondern mit einem den Gedanken des Ready-mades repräsentierenden Re-made konfrontiert. Die Leichtigkeit, mit der sich das Rad für Duchamp einstmals hatte in Schwung setzten lassen, ist abgelöst worden von der Komplexität, Tragweite und Historisierung des Ready-made-Konzeptes. War es Marcel Duchamps ursprüngliche Intention gewesen, Werke zu schaffen,die keine Kunst sind, wie er 1913 notiert hatte ⁽¹⁶⁾ so bezeugen die Re-mades die Affirmationskraft des institutionellen Kunstbetriebes. Das sich drehende Rad der Geschichte hatte aus dem Fahrrad-Rad ein Artefakt werden lassen. Reziprok dazu hatte letzteres seinen Schwung eingebüßt.

Notes

1. Roland Shearer, Rhonda: Why is Marcel Duchamp´s Bicycle Wheel Shaking on Its Stool?

2. iehe Duchamp in Cabanne, Pierre: Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. New York : Wiking, 1971, S. 74 und Schwarz, Arturo: The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. 3., rev. und erw. Aufl. New York : Delano Greenidge Editions, 1997, S. 588.

3. Marcel Duchamp zit. nach Siegel, Jeanne: Some late Thoughts of Marcel Duchamp. In: Arts Magazine, Vol. 43, New York, Dezember 1968/ Januar 1969, S. 21, hier zit. n. Daniels, Dieter: Duchamp und die anderen : Der Modellfall einer künstlerischen Wirkungsgeschichte der Moderne. Köln : DuMont, 1992, S. 208

4. Duchamp zit. n. Schwarz [1997], a.a.O., S. 588.

5. Duchamp zit. n. Schwarz [1997], a.a.O., S. 588.

6. Roland Shearer, Rhonda: Why is Marcel Duchamp´s Bicycle Wheel Shaking on Its Stool?

7. Nach Buettner, Stewart: American Art Theory 1945-1970. Michigan Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981, S. 109.

8. Dafür spricht nicht nur die den Präsentationsmodus dokumentierenden Photographien, sondern auch ein Eintrag im begleitenden Ausstellungskatalog, in dem es unter anderem heißt: “The ´readymades´ are among the most influential of Duchamp´s works. They are ordinary objects that anyone could have purchased at a hardware store […]. The first readymade, however, done in 1913 by fastening a bicycle wheel to a stool, was “assisted” by Duchamp, and hence is an assemblage on the part of the discoverer as well as the original manufacturer.” (Ausst.-Kat. The Museum of Modern Art, New York: The Art of Assemblage. 2. Oktober – 12. November 1961 [hrsg. von William C. Seitz] New York : The Museum of Modern Art und Doubleday, 1961, S. 46).

9. Marvin Lazarus zit. n. Gough-Cooper, Jennifer; Caumont, Jacques: Ephemerides on and about Marel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy 1887-1968. London : Thames and Hudson, 1993, o.S. (Eintrag zum 11. November 1961)..

10. Pontus Hulten in einem Schreiben an den Autor von 26. Juli 2000. Eine zeitgenössische Zeitungsrezension vom 17. März 1961 gibt einen weiteren Hinweis. Dort heißt es: “Nu geef je tegen het wiel een zetje. Wat gebeurt? Ja, precies – het wiel gaat draanien.” (in dt. Übertr.: “Nun berührt man das Rad. Was geschieht? Ja, genau – das Rad beginnt zu drehen.”, zit. n. N.N.: In A´dams museum beleeft men : De nachtmerrie van een fietsenmaker. In: Overijsselse en zwolsche Courant, 17. März 1961, o.S., mit Dank an Dr. Maurice Rummens, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam).

11. Pontus Hulten in einem Schreiben an den Autor von 26. Juli 2000.

12. Diese Replik wurde bei einem Besuch Duchamps Ende August, Anfang September 1961 in Stockholm vom Künstler signiert und befindet sich heute im Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

13. Siehe u.a. Ausst.-Kat. Museum Ludwig, Köln: Robert Rauschenberg – Retrospektive. 27. Juni – 11. Oktober 1998 [hrsg. v. Walter Hopps und Susan Davidson]. Ostfildern-Ruit : Cantz, 1998, S. 560

14. Siehe George Brecht in Ausst.-Kat. Kunsthalle Bern: Jenseits von Ereignissen : Texte zu einer Heterospektive von George Brecht. 19. August – 24. September [Red.: Marianne Schmidt-Miescher; Johannes Gachnang].Bern : Kunsthalle, 1978, S. 94

15. Siehe Virginia Dwan in Stuckey, Charles F.: Interview with Virgina Dwan conducted by Charles F. Stuckey, 21. März 1984, The Oral History Collections of the Archives of American Art, New York Study Center,S. 8.

16. Peut-on faire des œuvres qui ne soient pas ´d´art´?” lautet die faksimlierte Notiz von 1913 in der Schachtel à l´infintif, 1967.

click to enlarge

Our computer duchamp.arc.nasa.gov was the erstwhile host for our website. Well, it’s not quite a Nude Descending a Staircase but it worked well for years and met the criterion of being named after well-known artists or contributors to the understanding of perspective images. Now it languishes in the backwaters behind our new firewall computer which protects it and us from the ravages of international hackers challenged to bring NASA to its knees, wondering in a UNIX-sort-of-way how the next Duchamp, contemplating a staircase descent on the International Space Station, will render his cubic dreams.

Stephen R. Ellis, PhD Head of the Advanced Displays and Spatial Perception Laboratory Human and Systems Technologies Branch Flight Management and Human Factors Division NASA Ames Research Center

Early in 1962 Marcel Duchamp visited the students at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

I had seen his works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art when I was 12 years old and taking classes there. Now Marcel come into each studio and viewed our works. I was doing a series of “Housewives” entangled with shower nozzles, toilets, irons, etc. in an expressionistic way. He thought they were a mix of Matta and deKooning. I did like both of them. In fact the summer before while on a travel grant from the Academy I had bought two Matta Color Lithographs for $25. each in Rome.

click to enlarge


Figure 1
“Marcel Duchamp and
the Academy Bones,”
photography by Rodger LaPelle, 1962

He then spoke in the auditorium about his art and said that now he was an underground artist. I was the only one with a camera, and posed him next to the Academy Skeleton. I took one shot and filed it away. This year it dawned on me to show it and publish it after 38 years.

In 1968 I started to sell my work in Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in the penthouse over the old Park Bernet Auction House in New York. Duchamp and Man Ray, Noguchi, Bearden, Chryssa etc. were Arne Ekstrom’s artists then and here I was sharing a Gallery with Duchamp. There was, I remember, a great exhibition of Chess, and once Arne showed me the Valise of Duchamp in his back office.

click to enlarge

Marcel Duchamp,Note 224,
from Paul Matisse, Marcel
Duchamp: Notes, 1980 © 2000
Succession Marcel Duchamp,
ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris.

click to enlarge

Francis Picabia, Cover of
Litterature, No. 7
(1 December, 1922)

Marcel Duchamp’s teammate ⁽¹⁾Francis Picabia illustrated Duchamp’s lits-et-rature ⁽²⁾ pun for the cover of Litterature No. 7, 1.12.1922. Two large male shoes are pointing downward between two smaller upwardly pointing female shoes. One sole has a picture of a woman; another sole the picture of a man. Picabia trisected the name “Litterature” and wrote above the shoes “LITS” [“beds”], in-between the shoes “ET” [“and”], and below “RATURES” [“erasures”]. (The relative position of the shoes unambiguously indicates what bedroom activity the couple is enjoying.) In a generation afreud of nothing ⁽³⁾ this is a picture of sublimation: literature is a product of erasing what we do in bed.

click to enlarge

Photograph of Marcel Duchamp
and Eve Babitz posing for
the photographer Julian Wasser
during the Duchamp retrospective
at the Pasadena Museum of Art,
1963 © 2000 Succession Marcel
Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris.

Forty-one years later Duchamp responded to his departed friend’s gambit with this picture of Duchamp and the nude Eve Babitz playing chess ⁽⁴⁾. The goal of chess is to mate. We can thus see this picture as the record of a tableau vivant of a word play ⁽⁵⁾. Since Freud, vulgar theorists have held that chess and art, to pick two examples, are sublimations of sex. Given Duchamp’s attitude towards wordplay versus theory, it is better to see his life long interest in chess and eroticism as a sublimation of this picture’s wordplay! Given that the double meaning of “mate” does not exist in French, at last we have a satisfactory explanation of why Duchamp had to emigrate to America. In other words: in the beginning was the word; in the center the pun ⁽⁶⁾.

Notes

1. Cabanne asked Duchamp “Who have your best friends been?” Duchamp replied, “Obviously Francis Picabia, who was a teammate, so to speak.” A few paragraphs later, speaking of Litterature‘s editor, Andre Breton, Duchamp used chess as a trope for engaged human interaction: “It’s a somewhat difficult sort of friendship, you see what I mean? We don’t play chess together, you understand?” Pierre Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, trans. Ron Padgett, Da Capo Press, Inc., 1979, p. 101.

2. Stephen Jay Gould discusses this annihilating pun in “The Substantial Ghost: Towards a General Exegesis of Duchamp’s Artful Wordplays,” Tout-fait: The Marcel Duchamp Online Journal, Vol. 1, no. 2 (May 2000) Duchamp’s pun appears as note 224 of Marcel Duchamp, Notes, Arrangement and Translation Paul Matisse, G. K. Hall & Company, Boston, 1983. Arturo Schwarz lists the pun as S 18 in his “Elements of a descriptive bibliography of Marcel Duchamp’s writings, lectures, translations and interviews,” in The Almost Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1966; and as No. 25 in his bibliography of the same title in his The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, third revised and expanded edition, Vol. II, New York, 1997, p. 900. Schwarz mentions the pun and the cover in Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 31. Robert Lebel mentions the puns Duchamp published in Litterature in “Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton,” in Anne D’Harnoncourt and Kynaston McShine, ed., Marcel Duchamp, The Museum of Modern Art, 1973, pp. 135-141. The Picabia cover is reproduced in Dawn Ades, Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, Westerham Press, 1978, p. 175, and Marcel Duchamp: Work and Life, ed. Pontus Hulten, MIT, 1993, p. 73. Ades lists among the contents of the issue: “Robert Desnos, ‘Rrose Selavy’. Puns by Desnos which he claimed were transmitted by Rrose Selavy”. Hulten discusses this issue of the journal under the heading “1 December 1922”.

3. Attributed to the American expatriate “Lost Generation” which occupied Paris in the 1920s.

4. Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz playing chess during the Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of Art in 1963. The photograph by Julian Wasser is reprinted in numerous places, including West Coast Duchamp, Bonnie Clearwater, ed., Grassfield Press, Miami Beach, 1991, p. 75, fig. 34; additional photographs of the scene, including a page of Wasser’s contact sheets, are on p. 73, fig. 33 and p. 75, fig. 35. Dickran Tashjian discusses the circumstances of taking the photograph on pp. 71-74 of his article “Nothing Left to Chance: Duchamp’s First Retrospective,” pp. 61-83 in Clearwater. Duchamp is shown with this photograph in Ugo Mulas, New York: The New Art Scene, Holt, Reinhardt, Winston, 1967, p. 74 and studying it on the endpapers of Sur Marcel Duchamp, Calvesi, Izzo, Menna, et al., Fremart Studio, Naples, 1975. Eve Babitz was twenty years old when the photograph was taken. Unlike the also faceless subject/object of Etant Donnés, and perhaps casting a strange sort of multiply refracted light on that work, Babitz has a voice. She went on to design album covers (Buffalo Springfield Again, Atlantic Records, 1967), write novels (Slow Days, Fast Company: the World, the Flesh, and L.A., Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager to Have a Good Time, A Novel, Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, L. A. Woman, Simon and Schuster, 1982), write stories (Black Swans, Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), and write essays (Eve’s Hollywood, Delacorte, New York, 1974, Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step and the L.A. Night, Simon and Schuster, 1999, and various magazine articles). She gives her account of the photographic session in “I was a Naked Pawn for Art: Being a True Account of the Day Marcel Duchamp Put the West Coast Underground on the Culture Map by Playing Chess in Pasadena with the Author, Who Was at the Moment an Unclothed Young Woman with a Lot to Learn,” Esquire, Vol. 116, No. 3 (September 1991), pp. 164-74. A much shorter version, with some additional photographs, “Marcel Prefers Nudes,” appears in Craig Krull, Photographing the L. A. Art Scene 1955-1975, Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, 1996, pp. 40-45.

5. For a Man Ray photograph of a Picabia/Duchamp tableau vivant, see Hulten, 1993, pp. 140-141. See also Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. Pears & McGuinness, Routledge, 1961 [the original was published in the same year as Litterature No. 7], 4.0311: “One name stands for one thing, another for another thing, and they are combined with one another. In this way the whole group–like a tableau vivant–presents a state of affairs.”

6. My thanks to Paul-Jon Benson, Lydia Goehr, Fiona Maazel, and Leyla Rouhi.

<!-- function go(){ msgwindow = window.open('/issues/issue_3/Notes/shambroom/popup_1.html','', 'scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=540,height=650'); } <!---->

(The following example of Marcel Duchamp’s encounter with the mind of Leonardo da Vinci is exerpted from a longer essay. Duchamp discovered Leonardo’s anatomical writings and drawings, through photogravure reproductions, in the Bibliothèque Sainte Géneviève in Paris, first as a curious visitor in 1910, then as a professional librarian with a great deal of spare time, in 1913-14.)

click images to enlarge

Note by Leonardo da Vinci,
from: Charles O’Malley and J. B.
Saunders (eds.), Leonardo on the
Human Body, Dover: New York, 1982, p.296.

Philippe Duboy, Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma,Foreword by Robin Middleton, London: Thames and Hudson, 1986, 367 pages

If the aura of the “original” in the work of art has been effectively dismissed by the techniques of modern mechanical reproduction, then we might say that that other aura (the aura of the fake, the inauthentic, the spurious) has been more effectively installed. The aura of the dupe, the stand-in, the hoax can be seen as a particularly “modern” incarnation–one directly relevant to, if not entirely generated by, Duchamp and Duchamp studies. So much of Duchamp criticism, before it can make even a single claim or observation, must contend with the possibility that it is itself being “taken,” shown for a “Duchump”-Duchamp as the proto-typical postmodern trickster, but also as the academic grifter par excellence. Just what’s real in the Duchamp corpus? What’s the angle?

So it was, so it is!, that I really bit at a reference (in a non-Duchamp related text about “Eccentric Spaces”) to an architecture book by contemporary French writer Philippe Duboy that concerns an 18th Century French Architect, Jean-Jacques Lequeu, and specifically the relationship between this architect and Marcel Duchamp. The reference seemed to be implying, if only tentatively, that Duchamp was Lequeu or, at the very least, was profoundly influenced by him. Amazing reference, if only because I had never come across mention of Lequeu’s work before-let alone any intimation that he was a Duchamp influence (along the important lines of Raymond Roussel or Alfred Jarry) or even, maybe, a Duchamp creation.

click to enlarge

Img left
Jean-Jacques Lequeu, Untitled, 1792, in
Philippe Duboy, Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma,
MIT Press, 1987, p. 289
Img Right
Jean-Jacques Lequeu, The Vile Reclining
Venus, date unknown, in Duboy, p. 299

Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma was not (I had feared as much!) available at my university library and so I made an “inter-library” request and awaited its arrival from Toronto. When Duboy’s rather massive book-translated from the original French by Francis Scarfe-finally arrived, I fanned the pages and scanned for graphics. While there are only about 8 colour plates, there are over 420 stunning illustrations in the book. Under the heading “Figures lascives,” for example, one encounters a range of erotic Lequeu figures: drawing of a woman, wearing what I think you’d call an erect penis necklace, masturbating with two hands; many paintings that mercurially detail male and female genitalia; and lots of cocksucking satyr stuff with saucy, suggestive inscriptions. This is just to point out that, before reading a single line of Duboy’s text, Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma was positively radiant with “aura.”

click to enlarge

Img left
Jean-Jacques Lequeu, The Gate of the Hermitage;
Drinking Den of the arid wildness; The Rendezvous of Bellevue
is on the tip of the rock, in Duboy, p.83
Img right
Jean-Jacques Lequeu,The boudoir on the
ground floor, known as the Temple of Earthly
Venus, in Duboy, p. 27

The facts are, apparently, that Lequeu was born in 1756 (in Rouen), went to school at the Ecole Gratuite de Dessin, won a few prizes for architecture, and died some time in the 1820s: at which time his papers were anonymously (?) donated to the Bibliotheque Royale (now Nationale). Duboy’s ingenious study, as much about Duchamp as it is about Lequeu, is really a Dada chronicle of a Dada mystery. Duboy isn’t so much preoccupied with a sober, academic clearing-up of the nebulousness surrounding Lequeu as a fantastically, nearly impossibly radical 18th Century architect (he designed buildings such as “The Drinking Den for an Arid Wilderness” and “The Boudoir on the Ground Floor, known as the Temple of Earthly Venus”); rather, Duboy seems bent on stoking the avant-garde fire of modern art studies.

click to enlarge

Img left
Jean-Jacques Lequeu,
Self-Portrait,
in Duboy, p. 10
Img right
Jean-Jacques Lequeu,
Self-Portrait, 1773,
in Duboy, p. 11

Basically, Duboy unmasks Lequeu’s obsessive punning (his name itself could be slang for penis); his penchant for the erotic and the absurd (many of his drawings have drawing-room phrases such as: “The young cunt in an attitude of the conjunctions of Venus”); his Rrose Selavy-like alter egos; his detailed, science-minded draughtsmanship; his pathological portraiture etc. as unmistakably Duchampian tropes.

The kicker is that Duboy indirectly proposes a number of theories or plots concerning these awesome similarities. So I suppose the big question is: what was Duchamp really up to for that year and a half that he was employed by the Bibliotheque tionale…? Could there have been a secret society? A sort of Oulipo- or Pataphysics-based conspiracy to infiltrate the library and insert a Lequeu? Were Jacques Lacan, or Raymond Queneau, or even Georges Bataille in on the scam, too?

This note is really just a S.O.S. Can anyone out there save me, tell me what the deal is? Does the Lequeu archive constitute a new wealth of material for Duchamp studies? Or have I been taken: hook, line, and sinker?

click to enlarge

Marcel Duchamp, Note
from the Green Box,
1934 © 2000 Succession
Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Marcel Duchamp’s handwriting shows that he is a highly intelligent, creative and expressive individual ⁽¹⁾ . We see this in the overall appearance of his writing. It is legible and well placed on the paper. We see that he has both artistic and literary talents by the way he writes the letter “d”.

The upper zone in handwriting analysis is the area of intellect and creativity and because Duchamp’s writing contains loop additions to the letters h’,’b’, ‘f’, and to the capital ‘L’, and we can see a certain degree of dishonesty. Here is an individual who will mean something entirely different from what he appears to be showing. These additions are an attempt to fool you into believing that what you see is not entirely what he originally intended you to see. He also crosses many of his ‘t’s’ with a long dagger-like cross with the point of the dagger pointing away from the letter which indicates a certain degree of hostility.

His writing also shows an uncomfortable connection to his father. He appears to have some problems with authority and authority figures. He pays a great deal of attention to details and appears to be looking ahead to the future and moving from the past and a possible connection to his mother. I would not be surprised to find that there has been some disharmony in his early years at home.

He is given to simplification in his mental activities and carries this out in his day to day life. In all probability, he is more comfortable by himself than he is in the company of others. His “World Directness Syndrome”(III) is limited, which is to say that he expects others to contact him and reach out to him, rather than extend himself. He shows a tendency to keep people at a distance, as seen in long ending strokes, which is another attempt to control relationships. He also has a great deal of stubbornness that is indicated by his tented ‘t’s’. He stands strongly on his convictions.

The way he writes his ‘q’s’ and ‘y’s’ show some confusion about his sexuality and the pastocity (thickness and heaviness of the letters plus the crossing out of thoughts) in the “Emotional Release Syndrome”(IV) shows his need, desire or demand for gratification of one or more of his senses. It tells us that he was an emotional individual who was repressed, probably emotionally, as seen in the “World Directness Syndrome”(III).

So that’s what I’ve come up with so far. Looking at his handwriting as he ages, there are no great differences between 1910’s and his elderly handwriting. I will do further analysis sometime in the future.

The psychogram is a psychological chart or “map” on which an individual’s essential handwriting characteristics are recorded. The Psychogram is arranged in syndromes and plotted on a circle. It is divided into eight syndromes, Klara Roman, who developed the Psychogram in Hungary and took it with her to America in the 1940’s, defined it as a profile in a circle” of the writer’s personality. The upper half of the Psychogram deals with intangible values, aspirations, imagination and things of the mind and spirit. This includes artistic ability, creativity, literary talent and overall intelligence. The lower half deals primarily with the unconscious and measures drives, libido, emotions and repressions.Although in plotting a psychogram, some of the values are subjective, many are measured on an instrument called a Psychogram Guide.

Notes

1. I will work on analyzing his writing in the thirties, but basically it doesn’t change much from what I’ve seen. This is the first analysis but before we begin, allow me to insert a few disclaimers. 1.Because I do not have the originals before me I have to make some assumptions: I cannot tell the true margins because there are no lines delineating where the paper begins and ends and that will affect to a small degree the past, future reading in my report, so I just assumed that he had an average on the Psychogram.

The history of Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel has been frequently recounted and is sufficiently known. One aspect, however, has often been considered too little: the usability of this peculiar apparatus.

Click to enlarge

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Rhonda Roland Shearer has recently pointed out that at least the second version of the Roue de Bicyclette, created in 1916 in New York, is statically an extremely fragile object. Could, Roland Shearer ponders, the combination of front-wheel fork, rim and a stool be “an experiment and schematic diagram of chance”. ⁽¹⁾
Duchamp himself, during his lifetime, never ceased to stress, with ostentatious calm and persistence, the incidentalness and the insignificance of his invention trouvé. Even though today the Bicycle Wheel is regarded as one of the central incunabula of the ready-made-idea, we now know that originally it had little in common with the future ready-made ⁽²⁾.According to Duchamp, the 1913 original as well as the 1916 version of it were rather intended to please him personally, to be “the ‘gadget’ for an artist in his studio⁽³⁾.”One of the statements used by Duchamp in several interviews is to be remembered in this connection – in the version that was handed down to us by Arturo Schwarz: “To set the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day. I liked the idea of having a bicycle wheel in my studio. I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoyed looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movement of the flames ⁽⁴⁾.”Clearly, the analogy to an open fire was not chosen arbitrarily. Duchamp, with the flames dancing in the fireplace, found an easily intelligible analogon for the ‘contemplative’ effect that the spinning spoke wheel was supposed to have on him, at the time the first and only beholder and user – regardless of whether he had taken delight in the spokes’ ‘optical flicker’ or in the object’s supposed instability, provoked by the centrifugal forces acting upon it. Whether the spinning of the rim was “very soothing, very comforting⁽⁵⁾” or rather, as Roland Shearer assumes, “hardly relaxing⁽⁶⁾” it was originally part of the idea of the Bicycle Wheel.

<!-- -->

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913/64 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Should it not then be allowed, one may well ask now, to set the wheel turning even today, following Duchamp’s instruction and thus to a large extent keeping the original idea alive? This, of course, strikes one as being quite a theoretical question, given the museum reality. Whoever encounters one of the Bicycle Wheel‘s replicas in a public collection today, be it in Cologne, Paris, Philadelphia, New York, Stockholm or elsewhere, is confronted with tabooing prohibition signs, exposing plinths and reprimanding museum attendants. This confirms not only the museum’s inherent paradoxical logic of making history an actual experience by means of preserving it, but also the shift of meaning the idea of the Bicycle Wheel has been through in the course of the decades.

Sidney Janis has the dubious honour of having introduced a first replica, namely the third version of the Roue de Bicyclette, into the context of an exhibition for the first time. He did so on the occasion of the “Climax in XXth Century Art”-exhibition early in 1951, thereby changing the object’s intellectual status as well as the meaning and the function ascribed to it. The former “gadget” was de facto declared a designated ready-made within the canon of Duchamp’s works. The artist himself had carried out the arrangement of the exhibits and had dated as well as signed and thus authenticated and authorized the replica of the Bicycle Wheel in the beginning of 1951.

Click to enlarge

View of the Duchamp gallery,”The Art of Assemblage” (October 2 – November 12, 1961), The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Some years later, in the autumn of 1961, the same Janis-replica was displayed in the legendary
exhibition “The Art of Assemblage” in the Museum of Modern Art, once more and unquestionably so within the context of the ready-made. The Bicycle Wheel, having been given the status of a museum piece, was transformed into a state of visually documenting the concept of the ready-made, which was regarded as being historical ^(8).It was no longer necessary to set the wheel turning in order to be delighted by it; on the contrary, this was prohibited, as the American photographer Marvin Lazarus reported on the occasion of a photo shooting with Duchampn in the exhibition on 10 November 1961: “I wanted to move the Roue de Bicyclette so that I could shoot through it. Duchamp moved it.[…] the guard […] ran over to me and asked if I had moved the object. Before I could answer, with a little smile, Duchamp said quietly, ‘No, I did it.’ The guard then turned on him and said, ‘Don’t you know you’re not supposed to move things in a museum?’ Duchamp smiled again and speaking very softly said ‘Well, I made the object – don’t you think it’s all right for me to move it a little?'”⁽⁹⁾“An interesting question, now, that the artist addressed to a presumably puzzled museum attendant. Had Duchamp been allowed to refer to his nominal and intellectual authorship in order to obtain the privilege of usage? This question seems too good to spoil with an answer. It raises, however, another, more general question that shall not remain unanswered.

What would be gained by the average visitor to an exhibition and his aesthetic experience, if he too was allowed to set the wheel turning in an exhibition? As far as I know, this was the case only once in the history of exhibiting the various replicas. The touring exhibition “Art in Motion”(Dutch: “Bewogen Beweging”, Danish and Swedish: “Rörlse i konsten”), stopping over in the Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek, from the spring of 1961 onwards, among other optical and kinetical works of art put on display a replica of the Roue de Bicyclette, which, based on the 1916 version, had been built by Ulf Linde and Per Olof Ultvedt in May 1960. Pontus Hulten, at the time the Moderna’s director, assured me that the visitors to the exhibition had been allowed to turn the wheel ⁽¹⁰⁾.The spirit in those days, Hulten said, had simply been a different one ⁽¹¹⁾. A different spirit? Surely, rather, it was due to the fact that the replica, which had been built despite the lack of initial authorization, was of a low financial value. In consequence the curators Hulten and Sandberg could risk public use without having to fear too much damage ⁽¹²⁾.

In order to return to the question I raised earlier: little would be achieved if the visitor was allowed to set the wheel turning. I will confine myself to giving two reasons, one of them concerning the curational problem: the history of the 20th century’s participatory art shows that tactily involved viewers were always either overstrained with the offer of participation or unable to utilize the potential of the experience proposed to them. Allan Kaprow reported, for instance, that the visitors to his situational environment Push and Pull – A Furniture Commedy for Hans Hofmann from 1963 did not react the way he had hoped they would to his proposal to alter the furnishing. Robert Rauschenberg’s Black Market, in which the visitors were supposed to exchange objects and document this exchange with a drawing, was ransacked in 1961 while on display in the exhibition “Art in Motion” ⁽¹³⁾.
George Brecht had a similar experience when presenting his Cabinet made in 1959 – a cabinet containing several everyday objects. The intended epistemological experience, linked to the viewers’ tactile participation, was thwarted by overzealous customers looting the Cabinet⁽¹⁴⁾.

• 
  Edward Kienholz, Cockeyed Jenny, 1961/62
• 
  Benvenuto Cellini, Saliera, 1540-43, Collection Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

At the opening of Roxys, Edward Kienholz’ legendary brothel environment, in the Alexander Iolas Gallery in 1963, one of the visitors of the vernissage urinated into the ash can of Cockeyed Jenny, one of the whore figure ⁽¹⁵⁾.The second reason concerns the origin of the Bicycle Wheel itself: it would be practically impossible for visitors to a spacious exhibition to recreate the intimate atmosphere of the studio where Duchamp had once been able to contemplate the movement of the wheel. It would be as if one allowed the visitors of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna to use, in an allegedly authentic manner, Benvenuto Cellini’s Saliera in order to emulate François Primeur, long since covered with dust, at his sumptuous dining table. Historical events and situations may be portrayed vividly in a museum, but it is impossible to recreate them.

Duchamp himself, however, was once more given the opportunity to set the wheel turning, for in
1964 the Roue de Bicyclette‘s shift or rather the establishment of its meaning entered its – for the time being – last stage. Duchamp had authorized Arturo Schwarz to produce, amongst accurate replicas of thirteen other works of art, an edition of the Bicycle Wheel, the number of copies being eight plus two. The production of replicas of the Roue which, in the fifties, amounted to only a few copies, thereby gained a new quality and quantity. The strategy of creating almost identical remades for the sake of representing the idea of the ready-made inevitably had to result in authenticity, originality, in the establishment of an aura and, finally, in artificiality. Every single piece of the Schwarz-edition, just as before with the replicas produced by Janis and Linde, had been affixed by Duchamp with the admonition of metaphysics, the personal signature. Signatures commonly authenticate the will of their absent author – unless they are forced from him, which is hardly to be assumed in the case of Duchamp/Schwarz. Duchamp had readily given his nominal placet to a definite authorization by signing the ‘documents’ presented by Schwarz. And soon the Bicycle Wheels, representing Duchamp’s imagination, advanced triumphantly through the international museums, thereby strengthening their museumesque status as well.

Click to enlarge

Photograph of Duchamp wearing a lampshade with Bicycle Wheel, 1951 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris

Duchamp, in the sixties, may have sat in New York and Neuilly, puffing away at his cigar and turning the wheel that had been given to him as an artist’s copy from the Schwarz-edition. If so, then probably not without being amused by the course of things. The way the multiple Bicycle Wheels are displayed in the museums, however, was and still is traced out differently. The visitor of a museum or a gallery is no longer confronted with a “gadget” but with a remade representing the idea of the ready-made. The ease with which it had once been possible for Duchamp to set the wheel turning has been superseded by the complexity, the import, and the historicization of the ready-made-concept. Had Marcel Duchamp originally intended to create works that were not art, as he wrote in 1913 ⁽¹⁶⁾
then the remades, on the other hand, bear witness to the affirmative force of an institutionalized operating system of art. The turning wheel of history has made the Bicycle Wheel an artefact. Reciprocally, the latter has lost its drive.

notes

1. Roland Shearer, Rhonda: Why is Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel Shaking on Its Stool?, in: www.artscienceresearchlab.org, December 1999; see also her reply to What makes the Bicycle Wheel a Readymade by Yassine Ghalem, in: www.toutfait.com, vol. 1, no. 2, May 2000; and “Marcel Duchamp’s Impossible Bed and other ‘Not’ Readymade Objects: A Possible Route of Influence from Art to Science, Part I,” in: Art & Academe 10, no. 1 (Fall 1997), pp. 26-62; Part II in: Art & Academe 10, no. 2 (Fall 1998), pp.76-95.

2. See Duchamp in Cabanne, Pierre: Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. New York: Wiking, 1971, p. 74 and Schwarz, Arturo: The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. 3., revised and expanded ed. New York: Delano Greenidge Editions,1997, p. 588.

3. Marcel Duchamp, quoted from Siegel, Jeanne: Some late Thoughts of Marcel Duchamp. In: Arts Magazine, Vol. 43, New York, December 1968/ January 1969, p. 21, here quoted from Daniels, Dieter: Duchamp und die anderen: Der Modellfall einer künstlerischen Wirkungsgeschichte der Moderne. Cologne: DuMont, 1992, p. 208.

4. Duchamp, quoted from Schwarz [1997], ibid., p. 588.

5. Duchamp, quoted from Schwarz [1997], ibid, p. 588.

6. Roland Shearer, Rhonda: Why is Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel Shaking on Its Stool? In: tout-fait, Vol. 1, Nr. 1, December 1999.

7. Following Buettner, Stewart: American Art Theory 1945-1970. Michigan
Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981, p. 109.

8. This is not only confirmed by the photographs documenting the mode of presentation but also by an entry in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, where it says: “The ‘readymades’ are among the most influential of Duchamp’s works. They are ordinary objects that anyone could have purchased at a hardware store […]. The first readymade, however, done in 1913 by fastening a bicycle wheel to a stool, was “assisted” by Duchamp, and hence is an assemblage on the part of the discoverer as well as the original manufacturer.” (Catalogue The Museum of Modern Art, New York: The Art of Assemblage. 2 October – 12 November 1961 (ed. by William C. Seitz) New York: The Museum of Modern Art and Doubleday, 1961, p. 46.

9. Marvin Lazarus, quoted from Gough-Cooper, Jennifer; Caumont, Jacques: Ephemerides on and about Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy 1887-1968.London: Thames and Hudson, 1993, no page number (entry for 11 November 1961).

10. Pontus Hulten in a letter to the author, 26 July 2000. A contemporary review in a newspaper from 17 March 1961 gives another hint. There it says: “Nu geef je tegen het wiel een zetje. Wat gebeurt? Ja, precies – het wiel gaat draanien.”(English translation: “Now one touches the wheel. What happens? Yes, precisely – the wheel starts turning.”,quoted from anon.: In A’dams museum beleeft men: De nachtmerrie van een fietsenmaker. In: Overijsselse en zwolsche Courant, 17 March 1961,no page number, with regards to Dr. Maurice Rummens, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam).

11. Pontus Hulten in a letter to the author, 26 July 2000.

12. This replica was signed by the artist when Duchamp visited Stockholm in late August, early September 1961. Today it belongs to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

13. see i.a. catalogue Museum Ludwig, Cologne: Robert Rauschenberg – Retrospektive. 27 June – 11 October 1998 [ed. by Walter Hopps and Susan Davidson]. Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz, 1998, p. 560.

14. see George Brecht in catalogue Kunsthalle Bern: Jenseits von Ereignissen: Texte zu einer Heterospektive von George Brecht. 19 August – 24 September [ed. Marianne Schmidt-Miescher; Johannes Gachnang]. Bern: Kunsthalle, 1978, p. 94.

15. see Virginia Dwan in Stuckey, Charles F.: Interview with Virginia Dwan conducted by Charles F. Stuckey, 21 March 1984, The Oral History Collections of the Archives of American Art, New York Study Center, p. 8.

16. “Peut-on faire des oeuvres qui ne soient pas d’art?” says the 1913 facsimile note in the box à l’infintif, 1967.

From a modern point of view, astrology and alchemy are early forms of our scientific thinking that are limited by superstition. To the historian they appear as partial spheres of a uniform or holistic take on the world. In recent times, it is surprising to note an aestheticizing return to the era of “Kunst – und Wunderkammern” [editor’s note: a curious way in which art – often displayed from floor to ceiling – was exhibited alongside odd objects, scientific instruments, archeological findings and anatomical models] of early modern times. The exhibition, which was staged at great cost (around $15 million) and labor under the mystical title “7 Hills” at Berlin’s Gropiusbau-Museum, entertains the thought of an encyclopedic sum within which the knowledge of our times is contained. It is true that while doing so, one risks losing one’s level-headedness, but via a more artistic approach one might also gain a better understanding of the cosmos on a micro- as well as a macro-level. In view of the euphoria of natural scientists to simultaneously have deciphered the genome and the elementary particle, even winners of the Nobel prize talk about a new mysticism. The four letters of the DNA are supposedly nothing less than a re-formulation of the old four elements-fire, water, earth, air. Furthermore, it is no coincidence that 12 fermions exist in the standard model of the elementary particles. It might well be that man, always striving for more knowledge, can only project new versions of old prejudices, whose common structure lie in particular numbers.

The horoscope is the portrait of the planets in the ecliptic. It is a clock that, unlike ordinary time, is not restricted by the position of the Sun alone, but also takes into account other celestial bodies-from Mercury, located close to the Sun, to far away Pluto. These are astronomical facts; only with our belief in a possible interpretation of this constellation, ever-changes according to time and place, do we leave safe terrain and enter the realm of superstition of historical traditions.

The 12 signs of the zodiac are the projected combinations from the three areas (body, soul, spirit) and the four elements, which since C.G. Jung can also be understood as four functions (sense, feeling, thinking, will). Since the notions are not unequivocal and diverge in different languages, various possibilities of interpretation are always possible. One can thus designate the signs according to the system of the religious philosopher from Vienna, Arnold Keyserling, as follows: Aries: soul-will, Taurus: body-sense, Gemini: spirit-thinking, Cancer: soul-feeling, Leo: body-will, Virgo: spirit-sense, Libra: soul-thinking, Scorpio: body-feeling, Sagittarius: spirit-will, Capricorn: soul-sense, Aquarius: body-thinking, Pisces: spirit-feeling.

Within this cosmic human being, the planets create a structure that can be looked at as a sort of grammar. Jupiter would be the “and” of the language, which connects everything, Venus the noun, which is fixated upon the world of the object, etc. Each human being has all the components of such a systematic structure, a sort of ontology, different with each individual. But here, we shall not pursue further any ethical inclinations. In this sense, a horoscope can be anything-ranging from the “characteriologic” analysis to the representation of a course of life.

With all of our knowledge about Duchamp today, it does not make much sense to read Duchamp’s horoscope retro-prophetically as a potential life. The record would constantly be set straight by biographical data. This a posteriori view would not be very interesting. What one could try to accomplish however, is to redraw the easily available course of his life by taking into account the most important data. What was really important to him? And how can one explain his ability to let the world in the dark about his work? Every “house” (indicated by Roman numericals), beginning with the ascendant to the left, lasts for seven years. That is, one moves first through one’s own horoscope under the horizon, until, at the beginning of the 7th house (at the descendant right), one rises from the “night,” and, with 42 years (6×7), one appears before the public. In their meaning, the individual houses adhere to the respective state of development; they are, however, present throughout the entire life (similar to the genetic code, which is nowadays given more credence to. It is true that it has been deciphered, but we are far from understanding it.) A horoscope discloses that missed opportunities can hardly be taken up again. Life goes on. One should not, for example, raise small children (5th house) when one is in the 9th house (older than 63 years). One is not always equally young or old; but everybody has the focal points of his or her development at another place, so that not even these statements should be generalized.

In the following, we will restrict ourselves to the indicated data. Such a reading will certainly be a very general one. Everybody who is interested in astrology can further spin it out. Accordingly, planet Venus in the 10th house in Virgo has manifold meanings within the frame of a certain spectrum. Here though, this will be reduced to one location, namely 19.43 degrees, that for MD is the year 1953. We will proceed in this manner with every planet, and we will also consider the place directly opposite, that is displaced by 180 degrees, in this case 1911. The point situated directly opposite to one’s own location represents the complementary goal in one’s horoscope.

The individual astrological traditions differ considerably with regards to the tolerance of the Aspects. These are the relations between the planets themselves. One can compare them with the relation between notes that blend together to more or less harmonious music. Generally, one assumes a tolerance of 10 degrees between the planets, between a planet and the Sun or the Moon respectively 12.30 degrees and between the Sun and the Moon 15 degrees. This may seem arbitrary, and it differs from other systems. Opposition and conjunction (0 or 180 degrees respectively + tolerance, yellow) are impulses that have to be controlled through Will; Square (90 degrees, red) is feeling; Sextile (60, 120 degrees, green) = Sense; semi-sextile and trigon (30, 150 degrees, blue) = Thought. Traditionally, green is considered to be positive, red to be negative. It can also be characteristic when two planets are not related through any Aspects.

Below, an abbreviated interpretive overview will be given, together with a record of the planets throughout MD’s life. All the planets are located above the horizon. It is true that this is characteristic of a public life, yet it is also characteristic of a late fame. Usually, it is said that a horoscope, which does not enclose the center, is eccentric. Focal points are the 7th house (community, society), with Neptune in Taurus and Pluto in Gemini, as well as the 9th house (journey, ideas) with Saturn in Cancer, the Sun in Leo and Mercury in Leo, as well as the 11th house (friendships with the rich and famous, works) with Uranus and Jupiter in Libra. From the viewpoint of the Aspects, most of it is concentrated in the 9th house. This is why we are dealing with a person destined for (journeys and) ideas, and less with an artist in the traditional sense-the 2nd house (art, possession) is empty and in Taurus, we find only Neptune, that is acquaintances. Venus in the 10th house in Virgo is only connected through Aspects with 4 other planets. Venus occupies a prominent spot in the house of the public and has no negative Aspect. Since Venus is the creative force (and, from a mythological stance, the goddess of love), we could start analyzing her first, asking for the two corresponding moments.

Venus in Virgo in the 10th house: 1911 and 1953/4
During this year, Duchamp paints his most important paintings (family, nudes, chess) in Blainville. The long-term project refers to the passage from the “virgin” to the “Bride.” The background or frame to these years (opposite the goal) is the sign of Virgo. As the one formative incident that enters with Venus one has to assume the wedding of his favorite sister Suzanne in August. The inaccessibility of the “bride” will later become a subject of the Large Glass. Almost exactly opposite, that is 42 years later, in the 10th house, the 66 year-old MD marries Alexina “Teeny” Matisse-Sattler in January of 1954. From the viewpoint of the Aspects, it was a harmonious event. MD nevertheless manages to portray himself publicly (10th house) as (male) virgin, as bachelor (Venus). Only years later MD found out by chance that he had become the father of a girl in 1911.

Moon in Scorpio in the 12th house: 1929
The female (the mother) is generally represented by the Moon. The Moon also stands for the changeable and for (in the 12th house) regenerating in seclusion. As one can see from the two squares in the 9th house to Mercury and the Sun, this iridescent seclusion clashed with the self-confident talk and his judgment of himself. Externally this became evident in the 41st year (1929) of his life. This does not concern his short marriage to Lydie Sarazin-Levassor since it was divorced just a year before. Henry McBride asked the question why, in view of the “fat” bride and her father’s rather inadequate endowment, MD did not marry Kathy Dreier. At the crucial moment (1929), MD met up with her and her friend Mrs. Thayer to travel around Spain and Germany. Dreier saw in MD “another side of me.” She was probably the most important woman in his life, gravely underestimated by his biographers, even though she did not understand all the ideas (squares in the 9th house) of her “adopted son.” The opposition to Neptune in the 7th house brings forth the speculation that this friendship would not have faired too well with his other public acquaintances.

Neptune in Taurus in the 7th house: end of 1931 / beginning of 32
Except the already mentioned inclination to leave people in the dark about his relationships to women, MD obviously had many acquaintances (Neptune), which were not least (favorable Aspects in the 9th house) conducive to his journeys and ideas. In his vitae this talent manifested itself officially when he wrote a chess book together with Vitaly Halberstadt that was published in three languages during June of 1932 in Brussels. This cooperation must have been important for him since it is also the first planet he reaches in the horoscope (because so far the houses were empty and the other mentioned planets stood opposite).

Mars in Cancer in the 8th house: 1940
The ruler of nativity (the regent of the ascendant Scorpio) is on good terms with Venus and the Moon, but not so with Neptune. Next to the Sun, the ruler of nativity is often seen as the most important planet in a horoscope. Initiative as sublimated aggressiveness, the tendency to keep searching for the roots (Cancer), has to be accepted here as a principle. The square that points toward Uranus in the 11th house indicates the longing for the intellectual dealing with the work for which the foundation stone only is laid. In 1940, MD decides to start working on his private museum-on his Boîte-en-Valise. From 1941 on, MD will, little by little, put the samples of the edition together in seven series and publish them.
As mythological figure, Mars is naturally the god of war. Yet the German occupation of Arcachon, to where MD had retreated together with Mary Reynolds, his sister Suzanne and her second husband Jean Crotti, Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, scarcely seemed to have bothered him.

Uranus in Libra in the 11th house: 1915/16 and 1957/58
MD has a balanced (Libra) intellectual-dialectic relationship (Uranus) to his friends (11th house) in society. The time during which his personality (Aries) is emphasized-from 1913 to 1922-is determined by the Ready-mades. When he arrives in New York as a twenty-seven-year-old, he becomes friends with the Arensbergs. Directly opposite, 42 years later, the occupation with his work takes place through dealings with the publishers of his writings, George Heard Hamilton and Michel Sanouillet. He also meets with his important biographer and interpreter, Robert Lebel.

Jupiter in Libra in the 11th house: 1921 and 1963
The second planet in this house of the lifework is Jupiter. Jupiter stands for the capability of synthesis. What is better to announce an oeuvre than bringing works together in a big personal exhibit? MD is already 76 years old and only now is he offered this exhibit in Pasadena. 42 years earlier, in the house of mastery (5th) of his personality (Aries), MD brings about this synthesis in a completely different way than in an accumulation of his works. Through his alter ego Rose Selavy he explores the female side of his personality. The integrative force of Jupiter can be rendered in many different ways. Particularly noteworthy is the big tension to the conjunction of the three planets gathered in the 9th house, that is, to his ideas.

Saturn, Sun, Mercury in the 9th house in Cancer and Leo: 1943-1946
This is a big emotional conflict. Saturn as Authority, the Sun as Being, and Mercury as rhetoric economy not only set up priorities of the entire horoscope-so to speak the culmination of all his efforts-but they also create a symbiosis of apparent crisis. MD is now generally perceived as authority (Saturn) or in his mastery (Mercury and the Sun in Leo). He is almost popular, in any case a legend. Not only does the magazine “VIEW” dedicate an issue to him, but the Large Glass also appears as prop for a fashion shoot on the cover of “VOGUE.” There is an exhibit of the three Duchamp-brothers, etc. The squares from here to Jupiter and to the Moon display his yearning in two ways. On the one hand a longing for a synthesis of his oeuvre, which he realizes through the work on individual examples of the Boîte-en-Valise. On the other hand, it is evident through the fulfillment of his female side, namely in a sexual way (Moon in Scorpio) and through loneliness (Moon in 12th house). Of utter importance here is his liaison with a Brazilian artist and wife of an ambassador, Maria Martins, to whom he dedicates a personal “valise.” The “faulty landscape” within is painted with ejaculate. Through this, one can grasp the ironic message of the proverbial bachelor, who “grinds his own chocolate.” The speculation is permitted that similar things have happened 42 years before, directly opposite in the horoscope. His work will from now on be restructured. He moves into a new studio that he will use for the next 22 years, until the end of the sign of Libra. From now on, he will come up ,in this modest studio with the idea and realization of a sexualized, lonely woman (Moon in Scorpio in the 12th house), that is Etant donnés. The model for her body was Maria Martins, who soon was to disappear to Paris and Brazil, her native country. She became for MD the bedded Maria, in memory of the far-away Mariée.

Another chapter could be written on the allocation of cities. This differs, however, according to the various schools of astrology. We will restrict ourselves to note that New York as city of Neptune and Paris as city of Venus agree with the corresponding meanings in the 7th and 10th house.