Marcel Duchamp: Rotative demi-sphères. 1924

Fig.: Duchamp: Rotative demi-sphères.
Paris,1924

Fig.: Marcel Duchamp: Rotative demi-sphère, height : 137,3 cm, diameter : 65,5 cm © 2001 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y. / ADAGP, Paris.
1924

Duchamp described his objects as a "petite chose", but the influence for the arts was enormous.

"J'ai fait une petite chose qui tournait, qui faisait des tire-bouchons comme effet visuel, et cela m'a attiré, pour m'amuser. J'ai d'abord fait ça avec des spirales... même pas des spirales, c'étaient des cercles excentriques qui s'inscrivaient l'un dans l'autre formant une spirale, mais pas au sens géométrique, plutôt celui de l'effet visuel."

(Marcel Duchamp)

Important exhibitions like the "Movement" exhibition by Yyves Klein were influenced by Duchamp's ideas and artists' oeuvres like those of

Jean Tinguely,

Nike de Saint Phalle,

Nicolas Schöffer,

or more recently Survival Research Laboratories

cannot be understood without Duchamp's achievements in the background.

The Rotoreliefs were first shown at opening of the 33rd concours lepine, the salon des inventions, at the parc des expositions, porte de varsailles. Duchamp has taken a tiny stand of three square meters to exhibit Rotoreliefs. In a joint venture with Henri Pierre Roche, 500 sets of six colored disks have been produced and were designed to be placed on a gramophone. Turningat the certain speed the disk give an impression of depth, Duchamp suggested that the optical illusions becomes more intense when viewed with only one eye.