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In the Manner of Duchamp, 1942-47: the years of the "mirrorical return"

Art Bulletin, The, June, 2004 by Thomas Singer

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3. Indeed, Francis M. Naumann was still fooled by Duchamp's piece as late as 1999. See Naumann, Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductions (Ghent: Ludion Press, 1999, distributed by Harry N. Abrams), 151, where he writes that "In the Manner of Delvaux ... consists of little more than the image of a woman's breasts reflected in a mirror, a circular detail physically excised from a reproduction of Delvaux's L'Aurore."

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4. In Duchamp, Notes, the concept is written variously as "infra mince," "infra-mince," and "inframince." Pierre Matisse follows Duchamp's practice by translating the term exactly as the artist had written it in each particular note--that is, as "infra thin," "infra-thin," and "infrathin." Since it appears as "infra-mince" on the back cover of the March 1945 number of View, where the typographic layout was done by Duchamp himself and which was the only instance of the appearance of the word in print during his lifetime, I have adopted the spelling "infra-thin" in this paper except when quoting from the Notes, in which case I use whatever spelling appears in a particular note.

5. Duchamp, Notes, no. 169.

6. Duchamp, interview by Otto Hahn, Paris-Express, June 23, 1964, reprinted in Etant Donne 3 (2nd semester 2001): 114.

7. As Lebel, 56, noted: "For thirty years his own works have been mere visiting cards which he casually leaves here and there to remind us of his watchful presence."

8. Duchamp, quoted in Pierre Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, trans. Ron Pagett (1971; New York: Da Capo, 1979), 42-43.

9. Duchamp, Writings, 27-28.

10. Duchamp, quoted in Denis de Rougemont, Journal d'un epoque (1926-1946) (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), 563.

11. Duchamp, quoted in ibid., 568.

12. Duchamp, quoted in ibid., 568. Duchamp's discussions with Rougemont will be examined in detail below. Duchamp's remarks on the infra-thin are from the posthumously published Notes, nos. 35, 46, 7. The "renvoi miroirique," or mirrorical return, is from the collection of notes, diagrams, and drawings commonly called The Green Box, and can be found in Duchamp, Duchamp du signe, ed. Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), 93; and in Duchamp, Writings, 65. The phrase "delay included/Marcel," is the full text of a note sent in an Art of This Century gallery envelope from Duchamp to Joseph Cornell on April 19, 1943. The note is included in the latter's Duchamp Dossier, a box of collected mementos, and is reproduced in Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp (as in n. 2), in the section "Joseph Cornell: Duchamp Dossier," 46, colorplate N, and "Duchamp Dossier Inventory," 308, cat. no. 15.

13. The very fact that it is unclear whether the collage was exhibited in the First Papers show is evidence of this lack of attention. Duchamp sold, gave, or bartered away the piece to Andre Breton sometime before Breton returned to Paris in May 1946, and it remained in his private collection, out of the public's eye, until Duchamp had it reproduced in Lebel, pl. 112 and gave it a public showing at the Pasadena Art Museum's retrospective of 1963. The piece was later purchased by Arturo Schwarz, who donated it to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

In the Manner of Duchamp, 1942-47: the years of the "mirrorical return"

Art Bulletin, The, June, 2004 by Thomas Singer

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