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Hello
Tout-Fait,
What
a find! I'm an "anartist" and post-grad art history and theory student
at the University of Essex in the UK (Dawn Ades and Margaret Iversen
are my tutors).
This
first issue was tremendous. More please!
Apropos
of Rhonda and Stephen's article on the "Standard Stoppages," I'm probably
not the only Duchampian to notice, also, that the two extant photographs
of gauze (hanging over a radiator/in front of a window) bear little
relation to the morphology of the "draft pistons" in the Milky Way of
the Large Glass. Is this yet another case of Marcel's methodological
mischievousness?
Glenn
Harvey B.A.(Hons) M.A.
Dept. of Art History and Theory
University of Essex, UK
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Illustration
1
Marcel Duchamp,
signed version of Draft Pistons, 1914
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris.
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Illustration
2
Marcel Duchamp,
unsigned version of Draft Pistons, 1914
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris.
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Rhonda
Roland Shearer responds:
Your interesting and
correct observation of the difference between the Draft Pistons
in the Large Glass and his two photographs leads to other evidence
of Marcel's mischievous methods! Duchamp claims to have taken three photographs
of fabric blown by air currents through a window (of the three photographs
only two remain, as Duchamp claims to have lost the third). (See
Illustration #1 and #2.) Richard Hamilton writes that the size of the
actual cloth that Duchamp used was 1 meter square. (1)
By opaque projector,
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Illustration 3
Enlarged drawing of the Draft Pistons
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I enlarged the Draft
Piston photographs to 1 meter square. The impossibility of this large
1 meter square size quickly became apparent, as the dots on the lace would
then be more than 1 inch in diameter. (See Illustration #3.) Sewn
dots depicted in Illustration #4 occurring
in antique lace are only, approximately, the size of a pencil eraser.
Moreover, antique lace of similar type, when scaled to match the lace
depicted in Duchamp's photos, would measure approximately 3¾ x 4¾ inches.
Therefore, the lace was not 1 meter square and could not have been in
a window curtain (as scholars have assumed). Illustrations #5A,
B and C compare old lace to one Draft Piston photo scaled to match
the size and ratio of actual antique lace. #4C shows an approximation
to the actual size of lace that Duchamp used for creating his Draft
Piston photography. By further logic, one must also challenge whether
the open "window" in the Draft Piston photograph is an actual window
or the opening of a miniature box with the 3¾ x 4¾ inch lace hanging in
front.
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Illustration
4
Phototgraph showing a woman veiled in antique lace
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As an
additional point of interest, I discovered that if one puts the two
Draft Piston images side by side into a stereoviewer, an impressive
3-D stereo effect is generated. In light of Duchamp's interest and his
history in creating many original stereoworks, (including stereo-pair
images to be seen in stereoviewers included is his 1941 Boîte en Valise
miniature museum of his life's work), the two Draft Pistons photos,
working as a stereo pair, is not likely to be accidental. Perhaps the
resulting stereo image that one sees from the fusion of the two Draft
Piston photos in a stereoviewer is the third Draft Piston image
that Duchamp said he "lost" and has now been refound!
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| Illustration
5A |
Illustration
5B |
Illustration
5C |
Marcel Duchamp,
unsigned version of Draft Pistons, 1914
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris. |
An old lace,
shown here in red (originally in black) to better illustrate the contrast |
Comparison by
overlaying the old lace with the lace in the Draft Pistons |
 1.
In a telephone conversation of March 10, 1999 between Thomas Girst / Art Science Research Laboratory, Inc. and Richard Hamilton, Mr. Hamilton stated that he only "made the assumption" that the "Draft Pistons" were fabricated by hanging a one-meter-square Net (net curtain or veiling) above a radiator (text in italics quoted from: Richard Hamilton. Collected Words. London: Thames & Hudson, 1982. p. 229). In addition, he mentioned that he "definitely did not get this information from Duchamp" and that he derived his guess regarding the size from the length of the "Standard Stoppages" and by looking at the 1914 photograph.
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