Sculpture for Traveling
or
Sculpture de Voyage
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| Original version (as included in The Box in a Valise), 1918 |
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Original Version:
1918, New York |
This soft sculpture Readymade is made of different colored rubber strips cut from bathing caps. Duchamp cemented these pieces together at random intersections and tied the whole construction up with strings attached to the corners of his studio at 33 West 67th Street, New York. In a letter to Jean Crotti on July 8, 1918, Duchamp described this piece as "a kind of spider's web made up from all the colours" (Ramirez 44).
Sculpture for Traveling embodies the souvenir concept. In 1966, Duchamp called it a type of "voyage sculpture" (Cabanne 59). In fact, it was literally intended for traveling and could be recreated "out of his suitcase at every stop on trip from New York to Buenos Aires in 1918" (Ades 159). Duchamp described this Readymade in the following manner in a 1966 interview:
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| Original version (photograph), 1918 "1917" date inscribed appears incorrect |
| "Naturally, they took up a whole room. Generally, they were pieces of rubber shower caps, which I cut up and glued together and which had no special shape. At the end of each piece there were strings that one attached to the four corners of the room. Then, when one came in the room, one couldn't walk around, because of the strings! The length of the strings could be varied; the form was ad libitum. That's what interested me. This game lasted three or four years, but the rubber rotted, and it disappeared" (Cabanne 59-60). |
Replica:
1) 1966, London
By Richard Hamilton for exhibition at Tate Gallery
Inscribed "pour copie conforme Marcel Duchamp 1966"