May 05, 2011 - Sale 2246

Sale 2246 - Lot 172

Price Realized: $ 3,360
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
MARCEL DUCHAMP (1887-1968) DADA 1916-1923 / SIDNEY JANIS. 1953.
37 1/2x25 inches, 95x63 1/2 cm.
Condition A-: sharp vertical and horizontal folds as issued.
"The Dada catalogue took its place among Duchamp's unique publishing events. Designed as a poster on a 25-by-38-inch sheet of thin, foldable parchment paper, it listed all 212 items and included four short essays by Arp, Tzara, Huelsenbeck and Levesque. These essays were set in blocks of contrasting type running diagonally down the sheet--a text descending a staircase. Duchamp then overprinted the whole page in a bright red-orange, announcing the exhibition with letters that recall original Dada typography. When the painstakingly produced catalogue was finally received, Duchamp has been reported, took a sheet in his hands, crushed it into a loose ball, and suggested that a trash can full of these paper balls be offered to visitors entering the vernissage. Duchamp, characteristically, did not attend the opening." (Caroll Janis, Art in America June-July, 2006).