Marcel Duchamp

Pontus Hultén, Stockholm
Thence by descent to the present owner

The Almost Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1966, no. 182, illustration of another example p. 77
Marcel Duchamp: 66 Creative Years (exhibition catalogue), Galleria Schwarz, Milan, 1972-73, no. 158
Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1997, vol. II, no. 557b, illustration of another example p. 811
Francis M. Nauman, Marcel Duchamp, the Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 1999, no. 8.31, illustration of another example p. 227 

Executed in cream wove papier-collé attached to black laid paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount along the top edge. Apart from two 1cm. sq. glue stains to the upper right and lower left corners (visible in the catalogue illustration) and some time staining, this work is in good condition.
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The present work is a full-scale replica of the original 1957 papier collé collage, executed in a numbered edition of 25 for inclusion in the special edition of the book Marcel Duchamp by Ulf Linde – published in Stockholm in 1963 by Galerie Burén. This edition of hand-torn collages was created to help finance its publication. The owner of the present work was the renowned Pontus Hultén, Director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and subsequently the first Director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Hultén was the author of some of the earliest literature on Duchamp's work and curated the Duchamp retrospective which was held at Galerie Burén the same year.

Throughout Duchamp's career, the artist continued to explore the notion of 'Art' and its meaning in an age of mechanical reproduction. This was evident in his early Dada readymades in which mundane objects were metamorphosed into art works – bearing historical, aesthetic and commercial value – through a simple process of augmentation. In the present work Duchamp elaborates upon this theme, turning his attention not to the work of art, but to the image of the artist himself. The dedication Marcel dechiravit pour Ulf bears the mark of Duchamp's sardonic sense of humour; the invented word 'dechiravit' is a phonetic play on the words 'déchire a vie' which, translated loosely, mean 'torn for life'. In the present work, therefore, Duchamp himself exists in phantom effigy, his surveillant countenance haunting the consumer of modern art.