1913issue6online

12 Turns out we’re basing much of this on Man Ray’s photograph, “Tonsure.” Here the target flaunts a shaved comet (in 1919 or 1921)—the tail in place of the part. Man Ray says Duchamp worked and slept like a monk, probably busy reproducing miniatures of his ready-mades for his portable museum, the boîte-en-valise. “I wanted to reproduce them as accurately as possible,” we have him saying, though we suspect any difference between originals and Green Box models are infrathin infiltrations. Before leaving Paris for la zone libre and the United-States, Duchamp made an inventory of his ongoing projects. On the verso he scribbled: “maid’s room first one after the WC (on the left upon entering) in the left-hand corner: 1 cylindric pack of Rotoreliefs 1 large box corrugated cardboard of doubles for the green box 1 pack of faulty reproductions of the malic molds 1 pack of sugar cages printed by Hugnet 1 pack cardboard moulding for framing— all this has nothing to do with the recto of this sheet.” The comet gestures to a 1912 note included in the green box: “Cette Cet enfant-phare pourra graphiquement être une comète, qui aurait sa queue en avant, cette queue étant appendice de l’enfant-phare qui, appendice qui absorbe en l’émiettant (poussière d’or, graphiquement) cette route Jura- Paris.”

1913issue6online

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