Certificat de lecture

Author: Bert Jansen

Marcel Duchamp’s gallerist, Arturo Schwarz, was also a poet. In 1964, the year he brought out the replicas of fourteen of Duchamp’s readymades, he also asked the artist to work with him on the publication of his book of poetry, Il reale assoluto. Duchamp made two lithographs for the luxury edition of the book, presented in a box. On the first he drew four of his readymades with his thumbnail on the lithograph stone: Roue de bicyclette, Porte-bouteilles, In Advance of the Broken Arm and Fountain. The first two date from 1913 and 1914, when Duchamp was still living in Paris. At that time he had yet to talk to anyone about his ideas for these objects. They appear to be an answer to the question Duchamp posed in 1913; ‘Is it possible to make works that are not “art”?’, which he would include as a ‘note’ in La boîte blanche in 1967. He made In Advance of the Broken Arm and Fountain in New York in 1915 and 1917, when he thought up the term readymade.^[1]

The second lithograph Duchamp made for Schwarz’s book was Certificat de lecture – an ‘inalienable and non-transferable certificate’ as the inscription states – that identifies the reader as the patron and confers on the reader the right to read Schwarz’s poems without restriction for a thousand lire. The certificate has an absurdist tenor, as if it were possible to place restrictions on reading a book once it has been purchased. Duchamp illustrated the document with the four readymades from the other lithograph. By making this connection, he anticipated what – to many – would be equally as absurd a plan as reproducing his earlier readymades.^[2] From the outset Duchamp wanted his readymades to be free of the requirement of uniqueness traditionally imposed upon artworks. Later, he said of the reproductions of the readymades in circulation in 1964: ‘The uniqueness that is ascribed to painted objects has always concerned me and so I see them as a solution produced by others to answer my need to escape from this evil path and give the readymades back their lost freedom to be repeated.’^[3]

In the deluxe edition of the book, the certificate is rolled up and packaged in a cellophane sleeve in a special compartment in the box. As well as Schwarz’s poems, the deluxe edition contains ten lithographs by Duchamp’s friend and fellow artist Man Ray. Duchamp met him when he arrived in New York in 1915. It was the start of a friendship that would last throughout their lives, both in New York and in Paris, where Man Ray moved in 1921. Like Duchamp’s, Man Ray’s work is characterized by eroticism, puns, chance and humour. In addition to Il reale assoluto in its entirety, the museum acquired the two lithographs by Duchamp separately.