Full Description
Nude Descending a Staircase is one of the best known works of art in tihs century. It caused a sensation at the historic Armory Show of 1913, being damned by one critic as "an explosion in a shingle factory." Yet the criticism in no way perturbed it imperturable creator, Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp's "readymades" (the urinal singed by R. Mutt and entitled Fountain, the snow shovel entitled In Advance of the Broken Arm, and other objects bought and exhibits as works of art) are by now familiar objecs of critical derision and delight. And Duchamp's influence has been pervasive throughout modern art, fosterin Neo-Dada, Op Art, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art.
Marcel Duchamp's major work, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) was left in a state of "definitive incompletion" in 1923. The notes for this extradordinarywork form the largest part of SALT SELLER. Duchamp collected many of them for his Green Box in 1934, when their publication was immediately hailed by Andre Breton as a major intellectual event. The notes themselves will help the curious but mystified spectator of The Large Glass in no simple or straighforward way. They do, however, demonstrate wht an extraordinarily original process the making of The Bride Stripped Barde by Her Bachelors, Even was.
Duchamp's wit is nowhere in greater evidence than in the section "Rrose Selavy & Co." Duchamp was photographed in women's apparel by Man Ray and created a "readymade" female alter-ego Rrose Selavy ("Eros c'est la vie" or "arroser la vie" - drink it up; celebrate life). Rrose printed a calling card and her company advertised -- "For practical wear, a Rrose Selavy creation: The oblong cress, designed exclusively for ladies afflicted with hiccups." The company also had a service department which made "...home deliveries: domestic mosquitoes (half stock.)" The surrealists had proclaimed in the twenties that words were no longer playing around but had started making clove. This description seems to fit the sayings of Rrose Selavy who fashioned some of the most joyour and ingenious couplings and uncouplings in modern literautre.'
In the section "Marcel Duchamp, Criticavit", the more serious side of Duchamp is represented by two informative interviews and two important statements on art, "The Creative Act" and "Apropos of Readymades." His more experimental writings are grouped under the title "Texticles."
Taken together these varied writings constitute a major document of modern art. Whether the reader sits back and enjoys the charms of Duchamp or studies and attempts to decipher his inner-most secrets, the reader will find SALT SELLAR a compendium of delight.
Contents
INTRODUCTION 3 A LITERARY CHRONOLOGY 12 THE BRIDE'S VEIL 13 The 1914 Box 22 The Green Box 26 Cast Shadows 72 Possible 73 A l'lnfinitif 74 RROSE SELAVY & CO. 103 MARCEL DUCHAMP, CRITICAVIT 121 The Great Trouble with Art in This Country 123 "Regions which are not ruled by time and space .... " 127 The Creative Act 138 Apropos of "Readymades" 141 From the Catalog, Collection of the Societe Anonyme 143 Critical Glossary from Airplane Propellors Through Waldberg 160 TEXTICLES 171 "door, from now on ... " 173 Meeting of Sunday, February 6 174 Comb 175 The 175 With Hidden Noise 176 Apolinere Enameled 177 Rongwrong 177 Recipe 179 "Walter Conrad Arensberg hasn't yet ... " 179 Ventilation 179 Balls 180 Letter to Tristan Tzara 180 Dieu Bourdelle Dieu 181 Wanted 181 On the Second Optical Machine 181 The Monte Carlo Bond 185 Men Before the Mirror 188 MARCELDUCHAMPSOPTICALDISCS 189 "A transformer ... " 191 SURcenSURE [RErePROACH] 192 Luggage Physics 192 Message lo Andre Breton 193 INFRA-SLIM 194 SENSES 195 Schwarz Reading Certificate 195 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 196
