Campbell, Brenna; Lévèque, Élodie; Jue, Erin; “Marcel Duchamp's
Boîtes-en-valise: collaboration and
conservation”, Studies in Conservation 57, Supplement 1 (2012) 52-60
Abstract:
Between 1941 and 1968, Marcel Duchamp produced a series of roughly
300 boxes, or Boîtes, containing, in his words, ‘everything important that I
have done’ (Sargeant, W. 1952. Dada's Daddy: A New Tribute is Paid to Duchamp,
Pioneer of Nonsense and Nihilism. Life, 32(17): 102). Over the course of 30
years and seven editions, Duchamp and his assistants filled these ‘portable
museums’ with miniature reproductions of his most significant works. The
materials used included leather, paper, cloth, metal, glass, ceramic, cellulose
acetate, gouache, varnish, and wood. The variety of the constituent materials,
and the complex physical and conceptual ways in which they interact, make
conservation treatment of the Boîtes unusually challenging. The conservator
must consider both the condition of the specific Boîte being treated and its
relationship to the dozens of other Boîtes still in existence. After an
overview of the history and manufacture of Duchamp's miniature museum, the
results of a pilot survey of the condition of 19 Boîtes will be presented, and
treatment solutions to the most common condition problems proposed.