The Case of Marcel Duchamp - ACE145.7

Holmes explains that Walter Ehrenberg had come to own most of the rights in The Large Glass, but sold them to Catherine Dreyer in 1918. Holmes explains how the glass panels were broken during repacking after an exhibition in 1926, though no-one discovered this for ten years. Duchamp says that he loved the breaks. It took a year to restore the panels, but the work was still to fragile to be moved. Replica made by Richard Hamilton for the Tate Gallery. The work was subsequently increasingly well received, Holmes describing it as "the Rosetta Stone of modern art". Computer Toby and Holmes produce a theoretical and psychoanalytical analysis beginning with Laforgue-like word-play in the title. Duchamp’s voice mentions a childhood memory of fairground targets. A book of children’s popular science experiments and games. Holmes brings in alchemical theories and symbolism as a source from some of the ideas. Young Girl and Man in Spring / Jeune homme et jeune fille dans le printemps (1911): they have a tiny image of Mercury between them. Other painting and studies support the theory of alchemical influence; its results as seen in The Bride Stripped Bare…. Holmes talks about Duchamp’s fabric-dyeing business in New York, and how he punned on his name as a ‘seller of salt’.