Self-portrait
Signed with dedication, dated and numbered Marcel decheravit pour Ulf (Linde) 1963, 17/25. Paper collage 14.8 x 14.8 cm. Certificate from Association Marcel Duchamp is included.
Galerie Burén, Stockholm
Private Collection, Sweden, the seller's father was a good friend of Ulf Linde.
The Almost Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1966, no. 182, illustration of another example p. 77.
Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1997, vol. II, no. 557b, illustration of another example p. 811.
Francis M. Nauman, Marcel Duchamp, the Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 1999, no. 8.31, illustration of another example p. 227.
The present work is a full-scale replica of the original 1957 papier collé, executed in a numbered edition of 25 for inclusion in the special edition of the folio Marcel Duchamp by Ulf Linde – published in Stockholm in 1963 by Galerie Burén. This edition of hand-torn collages was created to help finance its publication.
The dedication Marcel dechiravit pour Ulf bears the mark of Duchamp's sardonic sense of humour; the invented word 'dechiravit' is a phonetic play on the words 'déchire a vie' which, translated loosely, mean 'torn for life'. In the present work, therefore, Duchamp himself exists in phantom effigy, his surveillant countenance haunting the consumer of modern art.