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Lot Essay
Jacqueline Matisse Monnier and the Association Marcel Duchamp have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
“For me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. When you’ve come to the word three, you have three million—it’s the same thing as three. I had decided that the things would be done three times to get what I wanted.” Marcel Duchamp
Originally conceived in 1913-1914, 3 Standard Stoppages marked a radical turning point within Marcel Duchamp’s oeuvre, as he took a decisive step away from traditional conventions of art production and began to explore new paths to creative expression, rooted in the intellectual rather than the visual world. Neither sculpture nor painting, the work was experimental in nature and was based on an act of chance instigated by the artist. Duchamp precisely measured three lengths of white thread to a meter and then dropped them, one at a time, from a height of the same measurement, allowing the strings to fall onto a painted canvas in a series of random, self-determined curvilinear lines. These threads were then adhered to the canvases and affixed to glass plates, preserving the moment of chance in perpetuity. Three wooden slats were subsequently cut along the profiles of these threads to create tools of measurement that paradoxically standardized the random curves the strings had assumed on landing, creating new units of measurement in the process. For, although each of the strings was still one metre in length along their curves, their shapes and straight linear measurements varied vastly from one another. The work became an elaborate, artistic measuring device, one which Duchamp used in the creation of several subsequent works, most notably the diagrammatic painting Network of Stoppages (1914) and the early masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (Large Glass) (1915-1923), where the stoppages would become the basis for the “Capillary Tubes” in the lower half of the glass.
As Duchamp explained, the experiment at the heart of 3 Standard Stoppages was designed “to imprison and preserve forms obtained through chance, through my chance. At the same time, the unit of length, one meter, was changed from a straight line to a curved line without actually losing its identity [as] the meter…” (M. Duchamp, quoted in A. d’Harnoncourt and K. McShine, eds., Marcel Duchamp, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973, pp. 273-274). By allowing chance to become the primary determining factor in the creation of the work and transforming the metre in this way, Duchamp challenges the notion that the rules governing the metric system of measurement enshrined in French law were infallible, universal truths, instead exposing them as an intellectual construct, determined in their own way by chance. The work emerged during a period of widespread skepticism concerning the objectivity of scientific knowledge, as recent discoveries had caused physicists across the globe to question their understanding of the established laws of nature. Particularly influential for Duchamp were the writings of the mathematician and philosopher of science, Henri Poincaré, who sought to explain the conceptual changes that had occurred as a result of the discovery of X-rays, the phenomenon of radioactivity, and Einstein’s theories regarding the electron and its laws. According to Poincaré, no theorems could be considered conclusively objective, as they were created solely by the minds that understood them, and could be open to challenges following future discoveries. Indeed, in his 1902 publication Science and Hypothesis, Poincaré highlighted the ways in which this undermined the truth of even the most fundamental of laws, and proposed whether under these circumstances it was “unreasonable to inquire whether the metric system is true or false?” (H. Poincaré, quoted in H. Molderings, “Objects of Modern Scepticism,” in T. de Duve, ed., The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp, Cambridge, 1991, p. 246).
Perhaps inspired by Poincaré’s statement, Duchamp sought to parody the authority of the rationalized, institutional metric system in 3 Standard Stoppages, straining its conventions and laws to reveal their inherent instability. By carrying out the experiment three separate times, the artist was able to avoid the creation of a new dogmatic system of his own, with the triplicate action opening up the idea to infinite possibilities. As he explained: “For me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. When you’ve come to the word three, you have three million—it’s the same thing as three. I had decided that the things would be done three times to get what I wanted. …” (M Duchamp, quoted in Marcel Duchamp,ed., exh. cat., Museum Jean Tinguely, Basel, 2002, p. 68). When combined with the chance element of Duchamp’s practice, this triple realization of the experiment results in a playful, tongue-in-cheek challenge to the authority of not only the metre as a system of measurement, but also the reliability of the scientific method itself.
The significance of 3 Standard Stoppages within Duchamp’s oeuvre was recognized by the artist during a 1961 interview with Katherine Kuh when, asked which of his works he considered to be the most important, he candidly replied: “I’d say the Three Stoppages of 1913. That was really when I tapped the mainspring of my future… it opened the way—the way to escape from those traditional methods of expression long associated with art. I didn’t realize at the time exactly what I had stumbled on. When you tap something you don’t always recognize the sound. That’s apt to come later. For me the Three Stoppages was a first gesture liberating me from the past” (M. Duchamp, quoted in K. Kuh, The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, New York, 1962, p. 81). As a result, when Arturo Schwarz approached the artist in 1964 with a proposal to produce an edition of eight replicas of the original work, Duchamp happily agreed. Coming at a time of widespread international acclaim for the artist, these proposed editions of Duchamp’s earliest works were intended to fill in the gaps within his oeuvre, replacing a number of his most famous Readymades and early works which had been lost or permanently damaged in the intervening years. Although 3 Standard Stoppages survived in its original state, having been purchased by Katherine Dreier in 1918 and subsequently donated to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1953, Duchamp felt that the work was of such importance, and represented an influential moment within his career, that it merited inclusion in this set of new editions.
“Pure chance interested me as a way of going against logical reality: to put something on a canvas, on a bit of paper, to associate the idea of a perpendicular thread one metre long falling from the height of one metre onto a horizontal plane, making its own deformation. This amused me. It is always the idea of “amusement” which causes me to do things…” Marcel Duchamp
“For me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. When you’ve come to the word three, you have three million—it’s the same thing as three. I had decided that the things would be done three times to get what I wanted.” Marcel Duchamp
Originally conceived in 1913-1914, 3 Standard Stoppages marked a radical turning point within Marcel Duchamp’s oeuvre, as he took a decisive step away from traditional conventions of art production and began to explore new paths to creative expression, rooted in the intellectual rather than the visual world. Neither sculpture nor painting, the work was experimental in nature and was based on an act of chance instigated by the artist. Duchamp precisely measured three lengths of white thread to a meter and then dropped them, one at a time, from a height of the same measurement, allowing the strings to fall onto a painted canvas in a series of random, self-determined curvilinear lines. These threads were then adhered to the canvases and affixed to glass plates, preserving the moment of chance in perpetuity. Three wooden slats were subsequently cut along the profiles of these threads to create tools of measurement that paradoxically standardized the random curves the strings had assumed on landing, creating new units of measurement in the process. For, although each of the strings was still one metre in length along their curves, their shapes and straight linear measurements varied vastly from one another. The work became an elaborate, artistic measuring device, one which Duchamp used in the creation of several subsequent works, most notably the diagrammatic painting Network of Stoppages (1914) and the early masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (Large Glass) (1915-1923), where the stoppages would become the basis for the “Capillary Tubes” in the lower half of the glass.
As Duchamp explained, the experiment at the heart of 3 Standard Stoppages was designed “to imprison and preserve forms obtained through chance, through my chance. At the same time, the unit of length, one meter, was changed from a straight line to a curved line without actually losing its identity [as] the meter…” (M. Duchamp, quoted in A. d’Harnoncourt and K. McShine, eds., Marcel Duchamp, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973, pp. 273-274). By allowing chance to become the primary determining factor in the creation of the work and transforming the metre in this way, Duchamp challenges the notion that the rules governing the metric system of measurement enshrined in French law were infallible, universal truths, instead exposing them as an intellectual construct, determined in their own way by chance. The work emerged during a period of widespread skepticism concerning the objectivity of scientific knowledge, as recent discoveries had caused physicists across the globe to question their understanding of the established laws of nature. Particularly influential for Duchamp were the writings of the mathematician and philosopher of science, Henri Poincaré, who sought to explain the conceptual changes that had occurred as a result of the discovery of X-rays, the phenomenon of radioactivity, and Einstein’s theories regarding the electron and its laws. According to Poincaré, no theorems could be considered conclusively objective, as they were created solely by the minds that understood them, and could be open to challenges following future discoveries. Indeed, in his 1902 publication Science and Hypothesis, Poincaré highlighted the ways in which this undermined the truth of even the most fundamental of laws, and proposed whether under these circumstances it was “unreasonable to inquire whether the metric system is true or false?” (H. Poincaré, quoted in H. Molderings, “Objects of Modern Scepticism,” in T. de Duve, ed., The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp, Cambridge, 1991, p. 246).
Perhaps inspired by Poincaré’s statement, Duchamp sought to parody the authority of the rationalized, institutional metric system in 3 Standard Stoppages, straining its conventions and laws to reveal their inherent instability. By carrying out the experiment three separate times, the artist was able to avoid the creation of a new dogmatic system of his own, with the triplicate action opening up the idea to infinite possibilities. As he explained: “For me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. When you’ve come to the word three, you have three million—it’s the same thing as three. I had decided that the things would be done three times to get what I wanted. …” (M Duchamp, quoted in Marcel Duchamp,ed., exh. cat., Museum Jean Tinguely, Basel, 2002, p. 68). When combined with the chance element of Duchamp’s practice, this triple realization of the experiment results in a playful, tongue-in-cheek challenge to the authority of not only the metre as a system of measurement, but also the reliability of the scientific method itself.
The significance of 3 Standard Stoppages within Duchamp’s oeuvre was recognized by the artist during a 1961 interview with Katherine Kuh when, asked which of his works he considered to be the most important, he candidly replied: “I’d say the Three Stoppages of 1913. That was really when I tapped the mainspring of my future… it opened the way—the way to escape from those traditional methods of expression long associated with art. I didn’t realize at the time exactly what I had stumbled on. When you tap something you don’t always recognize the sound. That’s apt to come later. For me the Three Stoppages was a first gesture liberating me from the past” (M. Duchamp, quoted in K. Kuh, The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, New York, 1962, p. 81). As a result, when Arturo Schwarz approached the artist in 1964 with a proposal to produce an edition of eight replicas of the original work, Duchamp happily agreed. Coming at a time of widespread international acclaim for the artist, these proposed editions of Duchamp’s earliest works were intended to fill in the gaps within his oeuvre, replacing a number of his most famous Readymades and early works which had been lost or permanently damaged in the intervening years. Although 3 Standard Stoppages survived in its original state, having been purchased by Katherine Dreier in 1918 and subsequently donated to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1953, Duchamp felt that the work was of such importance, and represented an influential moment within his career, that it merited inclusion in this set of new editions.
“Pure chance interested me as a way of going against logical reality: to put something on a canvas, on a bit of paper, to associate the idea of a perpendicular thread one metre long falling from the height of one metre onto a horizontal plane, making its own deformation. This amused me. It is always the idea of “amusement” which causes me to do things…” Marcel Duchamp