Apr 26, 2018 - Sale 2475

Sale 2475 - Lot 104

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(DUCHAMP, MARCEL; and JOHN CAGE.) Kubota, Shigeko. Marcel Duchamp and John Cage / Reunion. Photographic plates by Kubota but lacking the 33 r.p.m. recording. Oblong 8vo, 148x218 mm, silver-lettered blue cloth, spine faded; board slipcase, soiled and faded. number 201 of 500 copies. inscribed by kubota and with her address, in blue marker, on title-page to a friend and fellow New York photographer. [Toronto, 1968-70]

Additional Details

This work documents the chess game entitled "Reunion" that took place at the Ryerson Theatre in Toronto on March 5th, 1968, months before Duchamp's death. Participants included Duchamp and Cage, along with Teeny Duchamp, David Tudor, Gordon Mumma, Lowell Cross, and David Behrman (who made the recording). Cross constructed a chess board with circuits which transmitted or cut off sound produced by a group of musicians activated by pieces moved across the board. This published account of the event features photographs by Shigeko Kubota, an important member of the Fluxus movement whose most famous piece was the revolutionary feminist work Vagina Painting, accompanied by textual scores and poems by Cage. See also Art in America 61: 72-9 (Nov. 1973).