Giovanni Casu

Markgrafenstr.7
10969 Berlin
giovannicasu@hotmail.fr
+491739129137

Berlin, 27. marzo y

Marcel Duchamp’s experimentation with the art object reached a significant milestone

with the creation of the Monte Carlo Bond in 1924. Arguably, three of his previous artistic

strategies converge in this complex, ironic “perfect masterpiece” (18). The Montecarlo Bond

emerged in the aftermath of Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), the production of the Tzanck Check

(1919), and the Grand Verre (1915-1923) bringing his New York artistic endeavors to Eu-

rope. The Bond as fictional financial artefact, operates in the same manner as a ready-made:

it is built to perform. This performance encompasses aesthetic, conceptual, and economic di-

mensions. On November 9, 2015, at a Christie’s auction, one of the Monte Carlo Bond was

sold for a price realized of 2,4 million Dollars(1), but this it is not that important(8). As we

approach the 100th anniversary of the existence of this intriguing work of art, paying homage

is warranted.

Monte Carlo Bond, 1924. Rectified and imitated readymade. Photocollage on letter-
press, mounted on a flat cardboard holder (31.5 x 19.5 cm). Cut-and-pasted gelatin silver
prints on lithograph with letterpress.
It was to be 30 numbered bonds to be sold individually; however, less than eight were
actually assembled (25). Duchamp basically needed money to play a Martingale schema at
the Monte Carlo roulette table. He produced a bond with the intention of selling it to obtain
15.000 franc. The venture’s purpose is to exploit an inherent weakness identified within the

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roulette wagering system, based on a cumulative process experimentally based on one hun-
dred thousand throws of the ball. If the company succeeds, dividends will be paid(1).

Le Hazard. With the Monte Carlo Bond, Duchamp not only took a fundamental step in
incorporating Chance into the ready-made mechanism, after using it for the 3 stoppages-
étalon and Erratum musical (1913), but also aimed to master, or at the very least, neutralize it.
As Duchamp argued in a letter to Jean Crotti: “Artists throughout history are like gamblers in
Monte Carlo and in the blind lottery some are picked out while others are ruined…It all hap-
pens according to random chance” (5). In Monte Carlo Bond system the uncertain is domesti-
cated to the extent possible. The Martingale project reveals Duchamp’s pursuit of a hidden
logic in what escapes rationality—a fight against Chance where logic may emerge precisely
where it is expected to be discarded (9). Duchamp seemed to have considered roulette as the
dialectical counterpart to chess. As he expressed in 1925 to his friend Doucet in a letter “I
believe I have eliminated the word chance_ I would like to think I have forced roulette to be-
come a game of chess.(3)”

Hors d’oeuvre(caviar): The Monte Carlo Bond features a roulette table with a mercu-
rial/devilish yet childlike photographic portrait of Duchamp by Man Ray. In the portrait,
Duchamp a la tête savonnè, Duchamp has a soapy head, maybe a literal illustration of the
popular french idiom ‘“passer un savon à quelqu’un” or “savonner (la tête de) quelqu’un”.
Meaning: to moralize, to reprimand someone, put someone back in place. If literal idiom il-
lustrations in painting are considered banal since Bruegel and Bosch, at least, this original in-
terpretation gains a halo of extra mystery from the fact that, in the original photo with a wider
shot, Duchamp assumes the typical hand position for receiving catholic communion. Has the
evil boy got a lesson? Who reprimanded him, and if so, for what exactly? While certainly,
some speculations are involved here, a brief overview of Duchamp’s artistic trajectory before
1924 can provide a foundation for a deeper exploration of the Monte Carlo game table and
offer a possible solution to the riddle. Duchamp’s oeuvre is scattered with indices, visual, and
verbal puns, showcasing his capacity to meld together both the serious and the humorous.
The ever-present risk of overinterpretation emerges from his densely layered approach and
his consistently dialectical and contradictory moves: Marx’s theories of labor and value,
Poincaré’s non-Euclidean geometry, avant-garde literary experiments, and psychoanalytical
interpretation of images and words all converge in a joyous, playful philosophical investiga-
tion. Referring to an important choice he made in 1913, Duchamp established: “There are two

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kind of artists: the artist who deals with society, who is integrate with society; and the other
artist, the completely free-lance artist, who has nothing to do with it-no bonds. Sweeney: You
mean the man in society has to make certain compromises to please society and to live. Is that
why you took the Job (librarian job in Paris)? Duchamp: Exactly, exactly. I didn’t want to de-
pend on my painting for a living(19)”. It’s crucial that the artist remains so if they wish to
avoid becoming a pieceworker in the culture industry and mortgaging their freedom(11). Fur-
thermore, according to Marx, a producer engaged in work for oneself, pleasure, or out of ne-
cessity is deemed an unproductive laborer if not actively participating in the exchange sys-
tem. In essence, this scenario implies the exclusive production of use-value, such as building
one’s own chair. Duchamp adopted this stance as a statement meant to be challenged by its
own artistic moves. From the early days Duchamp envisioned a transcendental and spiritual
function of art that cannot be mix up with social and economical needs and bonds. For
Duchamp the artist is not a mere producer; the readymades additionally function as an active
critique of the nature of art production (faire de l’art) and the division of labor (5). In the
readymade the spiritual artistic enterprise is proven through the choice of a mass-produced
(untouched by the artist) serial object. Even the signature can be applied by somebody else,
somewhere else, under another name (4).

La Fo(u)ntain(e)’s fable, as a ready-made, serves as a truly serious pataphysical verifi-

cation of the artist’s reality under capitalism. Following the Marxist theory of labor and
value, Fountain (1917) offers a precise exposition of the artist’s position in accepting artwork
as a commodity. Fountain serves as a demonstration for Duchamp, revealing that the inter-
changeability between art-as-commodity and commodity-as-art gives rise to a revelatory
process, contrasting with the active concealment inherent in reification. This narrative un-
folds through the theatrical machinery of its exhibition and the characters involved: the
choice of the object, the fabricated scandal, the jury selection, the artist’s fee, the Mutt’s sig-
nature, the artwork photo documentation, the collector’s blank check, etc..it is not merely an
abstract philosophical inquiry but a literal one. Instead of questioning what value is,
Duchamp proceeds to showcase its conditions and modes of operation as a social phenome-
non(5). In this scenario, the artist assumes a multifaceted position, functioning simultane-
ously as a worker, manager, engineer, and capitalist.

The Crisis. This highly evolved strategy emerged from a pictorial crisis, a consequence
of Duchamp’s experimentation with cubism and a specific form of futurism, ultimately lead-

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ing to a loss of faith in the potentiality of painting (19). In short, Cubism and Futurism fol-
lowed a restricted trajectory: Cubism amalgamates an object, captured in a single moment in
time, with different perspectives onto a plane by “moving the camera” around the object. Fu-
turism impressionistically conflates different moments in time within the same perspective,
once again onto the pictorial plane. Both approaches represent a flattening of time into space,
suggesting a swiftly confined exploration of the artistic experience itself. This transition for
him marked a sense of the limitations of the painting medium and represents a strong analogy
with the reification process. In those early years Duchamp developed his own original con-
ceptual artistic approach, inspired by Jarry and Gaston Le Pawlowsky’s literary works, the
geometry of Jouffret and Poincaré, as well as the ideas of Mallarmè and Raymond Roussel
(14). Duchamp once expressed, “I felt that as a painter, it was much better to be influenced by
a writer than by another painter”(21). An excerpt from Le Pawlowsky succinctly describes
the explosive potentiality of the whirlwind of new ideas surrounding literary production at
that time: “the vision of the fourth dimension reveals entirely new horizons to us. It com-
pletes our comprehension of the world; it permits the realization of a definitive synthesis of
our items of knowledge; it justifies all of them, even though they seem contradictory”. To fa-
cilitate comprehension by the limited human mind, a fourth-dimensional object can be sim-
plified through projection into three dimensions and further into two dimensions as confirmed
by Duchamp(28). On the flip side, an enlargement of consciousness and knowledge permits
the two-dimensional object, initially laid flat on a canvas, to metamorphose into a three-di-
mensional entity, thereby extending its influence to encompass historicity and beyond.
Duchamp’s reaction to his pictorial deception was to transform the two-dimensional surface
of the canvas into the three-dimensionality of the object, thereby shifting the point of percep-
tion beyond the confines of present time. The ready-made became a time travel object, ap-
pearing blurry and opaque, much like the unpredictability of its future—its chance. It was a
tentative act of de-reification, ante litteram, through the destruction of the value linked to the
art object and to the financial one. The focus transitioned towards projecting into a medium-
range future through the encounter with the ideal gaze of posterity, completing the distancing
of his art and himself from the limitations of present time, the tradition, the medium of paint-
ing, and the obligations of economic and social constraints. Duchamp’s anti-bourgeois revo-
lution is in motion: subversion on multiple levels.
The Tzanck Check. In December 1919, in Paris, Duchamp visited his dentist, Daniel
Tzanck, and paid for the care with a fictive check, entirely and meticulously drawn by his
own hand. Tzanck was well known for showing his support for struggling young artists by

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accepting works of art in lieu of payment for his dental services (13). Like the owner of the
restaurant where Paul Klee ate for years in exchange for his paintings, he lets himself be paid
“in kind,” that is, in works of art. Duchamp obviously knows as well as Tzanck what he is
proposing for payment(11). This process literally involves “checking,” that is, verifying by
comparison how value is posited and expended in these otherwise autonomous domains (5).
Rather than signifying the commensurability of art on the market (commensurate, for in-
stance, to the services of a dentist), the Tzanck Check highlight the social and cultural sub-
texts of exchange. The fictional financial document emphasize the fact that both money and
art work are dependent on trust, while both need a social setting in order to function. The fi-
nancial documents take Duchamp’s general critique of value one step further by not only
questioning the distinction between art and non-art, but also exposing the congruency be-
tween the art world and the economy. To be sure, Duchamp was highly critical of art’s mar-
riage to commerce in the modern art world. When asked why he had stopped painting,
Duchamp answered, “I don’t want to copy myself, like all the others. (...) they no longer
make pictures; they make checks (16)”.

Escaped toVeules-les-Roses. As Duchamp completed his first financial document, he

recognized the need to introduce a new authorship for his production. After hesitating for a
Hebrew name, he finally created his own feminine alter-ego(8). Hence, in this final introduc-
tion, it is imperative to thoroughly present this last character and immerse oneself in the
mechanisms of the Obligation de Monte Carlo. Since 1920, the author-role of Rrose Sèlavy
has concentrated the creative forces of a specific desire: the desire for artification, to trans-
form something into valuable art. It encompasses the longing for recognition, commercial and
financial success, and even the very act of declaring something as artwork—the desire to be
recognized as an artist (34).
These are aspects that Duchamp himself deliberately considered at least inappropriate
and avoided since 1912 (34)(23). Rrose Sèlavy, serving as the feminine double, encapsulates
the financial, technological, and engineering aspects of artistic production—the art machine
in motion (23). Not only does Rrose Sèlavy act for posterity, but she also embodies posterity
in action. She can reinterpret artworks and artist intentions over time, determining what will
become valuable both artistically, socially, and financially (29)(30). The negative connotation
of Rrose (a whore), coupled with its association with commercial goals and artification, is re-
inforced by the double ‘R’ in her name. Originally, the double ‘R’ served in the Duchamp
word game: “Pi Qu’habille Rrose Sélavy” in the Picabia collective painting Oeil Cacodylate

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(4). But the movements of ‘R’ in Duchamp’s vocabulary also appear to adhere to a specific
meaning as outlined in one of his notes: arrhes (deposit or collateral) is to art as merdre is to
merde (shit). The word game from Jarry’s Pere Ubu is employed here as a reference, signify-
ing the transformation of an (art)work into something commercial(35).

Soap & Mosquitos. We may now be better prepared to encounter The Monte Carlo
Bond as a serious coded-joke—a synthetic absorption of the readymade object, the financial
document, and the projection to the surface of Chance, a chiasmic U-turn towards a new kind
of bidimensionality. Duchamp happily and ironically admitted to Picabia, “As you can see, I
haven’t stopped being a painter. Now I draw on chance (4).” Following our first clue about
the reprimanded attitude portrayed (the expression ‘“passer un savon à quelqu’un,” “savonner
(la tête de) quelqu’un” meaning: moralize, to reprimand someone, put someone back in
place), the Monte Carlo Bond appears primarily as an ironic declaration of a potential mis-
deed. Considering the consistency of meaning in Duchamp’s works, a better framework for
understanding the function of the soap arises from the Rrose Sélavy poem, “Le meilleur des
savons est le savon aux amendes honorables” (the original Duchamp note was “un savon fait
d’amende honorable (30)” from the French idiom faire amende honorable, which implies a
public act of self-humiliation, a full acknowledgment of error with an apology and excuses in
front of an authority. Based on Roussel’s simple homophony, the sentence refers to the popu-
lar soap brand Jabón de Almendras (31). It is noteworthy that Louis Aragon opened his Les
Aventures de Télémaque (1922) with an amende honorable, precisely anticipating the Dada
“conspiracy” judgment(33). This act of self-humiliation need an authority, a public, and the
wider May Ray` shot can help us: in The Creative Act Duchamp can be quoted as saying,
“The creative act takes on another aspect when the spectator experiences the phenomenon of
transmutation: through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstan-
tiation has taken place, and the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on
the aesthetic scale’”(27). Duchamp’s acceptance of the Host, as illustrated in the shots where
he engages in the Holy Communion, can be interpreted as an theatrical acknowledgment of a
the higher authority, the Posterity ready to serve the Host and complete the transubstantia-
tion. In the same lecture, Duchamp specifies, “he (the artist) will have to wait for the verdict
of the spectator so that his declarations take on social value” (27). He acknowledges that the
capricious nature of Chance will unfold its dynamics through the lens of Posterity, serving as
the ultimate judge to deliver the verdict. Another potential enrichment to further enhance the
multiple layers of meaning in this part of Bond is provided by the substantial coincidences

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with Pirandello’s Il Fu Mattia Pascal: a dishonest character (a theosophist who exploits a
masculine daughter-in-law as a spiritual medium) appears for the first time in the plot almost
naked and with a soapy head & beard. In Il Fu Mattia Pascal (first american edition 1923),
the protagonist, a librarian, goes to Monte Carlo to accidentally win a huge sum that frees
him from family and work obligations(35).
Duchamp’s “Portrait with Soap” could be considered an amende honorable directed to-
wards Posterity—a calculated, narcissistic, and ironic act? Envisaging a future judgment,
Duchamp envisioned himself as the god of commerce or a devilish faun, or both? Duchamp’s
decision to sculpt his hair with foam could be interpreted as an homage to Mercury, the god
associated with financial gain and commerce, an amused clin d’œil, to the ballet Mercure
(1924), where the décor and costumes were designed by Pablo Picasso. Gabrielle Buffet re-
marked in the Dada magazine 391 that Mercure was “très nettement inspiré de Picabia et Du-
champ (35)”. The June 1924 premiere of Mercure, featuring Satie, was a pivotal and tumul-
tuous occasion marked by intense conflicts. Noteworthy tensions flared between Satie and
Cocteau, as well as between Picabia and Picasso. Further discord involved Breton and
Aragon opposing Satie, with Tzara also playing a role. Given the acrimonious atmosphere
surrounding the premiere, it seems challenging to imagine Duchamp playfully impersonating
Mercure during the same period, especially considering the humor directed at Cocteau’s ob-
session with the character and Duchamp’s legendary penchant for maintaining a distance
from such events (37). However, in a more coherent alignment with the Bond narrative, he
could depicted himself as the result of an alchemical joint venture—a newborn Hermes per-
petually caught between snaky desires and lofty concepts (the Asclepio). The interest in
alchemy in Duchamp’s work is unquestionable (36) but the repeated sentence Moustiquesdo-
mestiquesdemi-stock in the Bond propels us further. Duchamp completes the sentence in his
Anémic Cinéma (1925): “On demande des moustiques domestiques (demi-stock) pour la cure
d’azote sur la côte d’Azur” translating to: Domestic mosquitoes (half-stock) are required for
the Nitrogen (Azote) cure on the French Riviera. Let’s start from the end: the cure will take
place in Monte Carlo, Côte d’Azur. We can stretch the “Azote cure” to refer to the alchemical
function of Azoth—a unifying virtue often identified as “unconditional love,” capable of har-
monizing opposites. This interpretation aligns seamlessly with Duchamp’s alchemical oeu-
vre, a metaphoric backdrop(38). Duchamp, through the Montecarlo Bond, aims to reunite the
no-longer-artist Marcel Duchamp (or artiste defroquè since 1923) with the fresh widow Rrose
Sèlavy?

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 The term “demi-Stock” derives from “half-stock,” a financial practice prevalent in the
1920s. Essentially, a half stock represents a financial security equal to 50% of the value of
common stock. During this era, when businesses sought to raise capital without diluting the
ownership of existing shareholders through the issuance of full shares, some corporations
opted to offer half stocks. This approach aimed to make their investment opportunities more
accessible to novice investors and broaden their investor base(39). The sentence “On de-
mande des moustiques domestiques (demi-stock) pour la cure d’azote sur la côte d’Azur” be-
gins to emerge with almost a literal meaning. Still, the identity of the moustiques domestiques
needs to be defined. The coherence of the sentence and associations is given by multi-allitera-
tion and the rhythmic sound of the sentence: moustique-domestique-demi-stock etc., follow-
ing between others, François Rabelais’ examples.

The Pre-Dessert. To conclude this interpretation, we have to take a little risky jump be-
cause Duchamp’s notes give us only several variations. Thus, we can only speculate, building
on the more solid indices of the rest of the sentence and the discursivity of the Bond artwork
piece. In a letter to Ettie Stettheimer and her sisters, dated March 27, 1925, Duchamp de-
clared his liking for living in Montecarlo because of the absence of mosquitoes—quite a sur-
prise for a Mediterranean town near the sea. In another earlier two letters, dated August and
September 1922, Duchamp asked M.lle Florine Stettheimer to send again the poem “The
Mosquitos” with the signature and new ending to publish it in DADA magazine in Paris.
Duchamp presumably received this poem from Florine Stettheimer (41):

When do mosquitoes sleep

I don’t know
When I sleep
Mosquitoes know

In the Dada poem, the role of mosquitoes is characteristic, representing little sneaky and
annoying beings that seek to extract blood. Notably, it is not maybe coincidental that the last
painting by Duchamp, “Tu m’.”(1918) may be a concise form of the French phrase “tu
m’emmerdes” (you annoy me). This piece was commissioned by the artist, collector, and ed-
ucator Katherine Dreier—a commission that Duchamp accepted, primarily driven by finan-
cial needs. Duchamp consistently used “Moustique’”in his work in 1924, 1925, 1926, and
1930. Again, we can only speculate: Duchamp, drawing inspiration from Mme. Stettheimer’s

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Dada Mosquitos poem, means by “Moustique domestiques” literally more or less closed peo-
ple who would like to speculate financially on his work (to suck his blood).
Duchamp’s consistent preference for selling his works to trustworthy individuals is evi-
dent throughout his life, as reflected in the list of Bond buyers, which includes notable names
such as Douchet, Ettie Stettheimer, and two bonds to Man Ray. However, this cautious ap-
proach appears to be contradicted by a publication in the American Little Review where
Duchamp advertised the Bond. This deviation from his usual practice might be attributed to
specific circumstances or considerations that prompted Duchamp to broaden the audience for
the Bond through this particular avenue. Most probably, he was searching only for
“Mosquitos” and the “domestique” association came later in sound connection with Demi-
Stock. The reference to mosquitoes made Florine Stettheimer a kind of presence in the Bond:
she was aware of the project, her sister bought one Bond, her father was a rich banker, and
she was quite obsessed by the figure of the faun after attending Debussy’s piece in 1912—in-
ner jokes between friends in an already multilayered artwork? Following this chain of coinci-
dences and recurrences of words, the character in the Man Ray photo seems to refer more
reasonably to a devilish faun also becasue the presence of the beard(40). The use of soap
again can be multilayered in terms of references and significance. It appears that in the origi-
nal sequence orchestrated by Duchamp and captured by Man Ray, the reference to the evil
faun is present in only one out of four well-staged shots. This further supports the thesis of
“se savonner la tête” in conjunction with the position of the receiving Host’s hands. However,
an even more intriguing reference seems to emerge from this discursivity.

Saint Jean & the Captain. Duchamp ultimately chose to eliminate the reference to the
host from the Bond portrait picture. He opted to ‘cut’ his head (literally the Ray photo pic-
ture). While this choice undoubtedly enhanced the graphical impact of the Bond, it may also
be linked to another reason. The Hazard, the faun, Azur, the bet, the decapitation, and the
foamy beard let appears a deep, almost obvious reference of the Monte Carlo Bond: Stéphane
Mallarmé` “L’après-midi d’un faune” certainly, but more specifically his most famous poem
“Un coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard” (A throw of the Dice will never abolish
Chance) republished in 1914. Duchamp deeply knew Mallarmé’s oeuvre and included him in
his ideal library. The deep resonance between the two authors seems to emerge, for example,
through a shared sensitivity towards themes such as posterity, the attachement to the spiritual
dimension of artistic work, and the monetary and sociological concerns in art production(43).
In the Bond those elements are fully expressed: in Mallarmé’s coup de Dés poem a dramatic

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scene unfolds as a Maître, the captain of a disgraced boat, faces the decision of whether to
throw the dice or not. In this pivotal moment, a wave crashes against him, transforming his
visage through the foam (l’écume) into an old man with a white beard, a beard crafted from
sea foam (42). Quentin Meillassoux’s description of the Mallarmè`scene, particularly in con-
nection with decapitation and the isolation of the head as a purification from the body, adds a
fascinating layer of interpretation to the Monte Carlo Bond. Observing the “decapitated” por-
trait of Duchamp (1923) by Florine Stettheimer, one can only imagine Florine and Marcel en-
gaging in deep conversations about Mallarmé’s poems in New York during that period,
amidst the Obligation setting up.

Saint Jean II. The very content of the Monte Carlo Bond can be seen as a message to
posterity, constituting a performative meta-representation of the artist’s oeuvre, reception,
and destiny framed within the context of a hazardous, yet calculated, bet. This aligns with
Meillassoux’s ideas on Mallarmé’s “coup de Dés” poem and connects with Mallarmé’s notes
for “Le Livrè” (43)(42). The notes for Mallarmé’s unpublished grand œuvre highlight a com-
parison between Mallarmé and Duchamp. Mallarmé strategically calculated the book’s price,
with a select elite financing production through ritual theatrical representations. This ap-
proach aimed at enabling broader distribution to the public. Details such as price, edition, and
distribution were meticulously documented, tied to the creative process and culminating in a
captivating incarnation of the poem during a secular Mass(43). The connection between the
Bond and Mallarmé’s larger project awaits further investigation.
After this lengthy discourse, the sentence unfolds with coherence, albeit lacking in ele-
gance: we (Rrose & Marcel) are searching (on demand) for trustworthy people to buy those
Bonds and finance the Martingale enterprise. For half of the price (Demi-stock), the buyer
purchases the bond and also acquires an artwork, marking a process of reconciliation between
art and finance, hazard and strategy, male and female etc, — opposites united through the al-
chemical substance of Azoth (unconditional love) in Monte Carlo, Côte d’Azur, (Azur may
allude to Mallarmé’s poem L’Azur about the disillusioned destiny of the romantic artist fig-
ure). This enterprise, beyond its financial dimension, also serves as a cure, a transformative
journey intertwined with the alchemical essence of the artistic and financial realms.

The Bonded. The interplay between artistic value and financial value is articulated in
the Bond’s functionality: the physicality of the Bond undergoes transformation due to its in-
trinsic, entangled double form of value. The material manifestation of the Bond, exposed over

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time and proliferated through replicas and reproductions (e.g., in 1938 and 1941), will navi-
gate the realm of Chance akin to the financial system it is embedded within, in a deferred
temporality. Only the sold and stamped Bond produces interest, as described in the letter to
M.me Stettheimer on May 1925 (4). The stamp activates the double nature of the Bond, and
the Bonds that are not stamped are only oeuvre d’art, as Duchamp wrote in the same letter(4).
Duchamp programmed the Bond to mimic how the artist and the art market builds value(s)
through the accidents of Chance while also highlighting the artist’s entrapment in the impos-
sibility of escaping the commodification of their own work. In this context, the artist’s func-
tion coexists with that of a fictional banker. This dual nature of the Bond`author is repre-
sented by an Administrateur (Marcel Duchamp) and a President du Conseil d’Administration
(Rrose Sèlavy). The ready-made lacked control over Chance. In 1924, upon returning to Eu-
rope, Duchamp attempted to domesticate this troublesome element that vexed him, alongside
his chronic obsession with monetary concerns. In a provocative game against himself, he
challenged the notion of economic speculation on art, employing an old hegelian dialectic
strategy. Instead of questioning artistic worth, it addresses the broader question of how value
comes into being. The artwork, functioning as a value machine, activates buyers as a com-
munity of trust and common profit. The artist produces exchange value by making a promise
in the form of a physical object. The bond, in legal fictional form, says, “I promise you” ask-
ing for trust (with a +20% return in this case). The cultural value of a work is fundamentally
based on trust: it depends on the trust, credibility, and specific social authority held by those
who evaluate it. The promotion of this cultural value, to be effective, must happen without
the knowledge of the agents involved. In other words, it is necessary to maintain the univer-
sally shared illusion that the work possesses intrinsic value, that this value is not the result of
a social construction, and that it does not arise from the assignment of value signs. As epito-
mes of the ready-made, Duchamp’s financial documents can be considered a refined critique
of the art market’s perversity but can only be fully appreciated by setting aside Duchamp’s
biography(4).

The Game. He was extremely well connected in the art world. During the course of his
life, Duchamp became friends with bourgeois art collectors, art dealers and with museum of-
ficials (7). His letters (4) confirm his involvement in trading Brancusi sculptures in US and
trying to control the prices of Picabia artworks already in 1924. In a letter to Douchet,
Duchamp writes “A detail will amuse you: following your advice, I asked Rochè to defend
the main Spanish woman (Picabia Paintings) at a price of 3000 (...) I don’t regret it (...) be-

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cause now all those little women (again the Picabia Paintings), in the eyes of the public, have
fought really well”(4). Duchamp, like a modern gallerist, defended his friend’s paintings’
value in a parisian public auction, knowing it would be a good investment in the future. In
1926 and 1927, Duchamp invested his family heritage in works by Brancusi and once again
in works by Picabia (15), but still in 1929 he can write to M.me Dreier: “My attitude (...) is
based upon my attitude toward “Art” since1918_So I’ m furiuos myself that you will accept
only partly my attitude. It can be no more question of my life as an artist’s life: I gave up ten
years ago: this period is long enough to prove that my intention to remain outside of any art
manifestation is permanent(4)”. In the 1920s, Duchamp lived trapped between his existential
choice not to participate in the art world as an artist and being fully involved in its function-
ing — as an art seller, buyer, collector, publisher, dealer, writer, organizer, artist’s friend, etc.
— and selling his work within a very small circle of friends & patrons. Duchamp admitted to
an interviewer that the Bond system he devised was ineffective; he won nothing(2).” Du-
champ’s interest in the speculative character of money does not translate itself into the sub-
servience of his own artistic work to monetary considerations. Instead, it expresses the recog-
nition that value, whether artistic or financial, is embedded in a circuit of symbolic exchange
(5) and is fully a part of the art object, just like the physical support and the concept that gen-
erates it.

1. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5371694
2. https://davidtomas.ca/files/marcel-duchamp-a-retrospective-exhibition.pdf
Francis M. Naumann. “Apropos of Myself ”, quoted in A. d’Harnoncourt and K. McShine,
eds., p. 297).
3. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/marcel-duchamp-the-gambler/
Trevor Stark. Marcel Duchamp, the Gambler. MITPRESS.
4. https://archive.org/details/affectionatelyma00duch/page/154/mode/2up?view=theater
Francis Naumann (Editor). Affectionately, Marcel. 2000.
5. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?
docId=ft3w1005ft;chunk.id=d0e4875;doc.view=print

ESSAY TITLE 12
Judovitz, Dalia. Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995.
6. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3w1005ft/
7. https://www.toutfait.com/duchamps-financial-documentsexchange-as-a-source-of-value/
Yang, Shin-Yi. Duchamp’s Financial Documents: Exchange as a Source of Value. Pub-
lished: 2000/05/01, Updated: 2019/05/07.
8. https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Cabanne_Pierre_Dialogues_with_Marcel_Duchamp.pdf
Cabanne Pierre. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp.
9. https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-philosophiques1-2012-4-page-18.htm
Sarah Troche. Marcel Duchamp : trois méthodes pour mettre le hasard en conserve. Dans Ca-
hiers philosophiques 2012/4 (n° 131), pages 18 à 36.
10.
https://www.academia.edu/42677801/Sebastian_Egenhofer_Casting_and_Projektion_The_Re
adymades_and_the_Large_Glass.
Sebastian Egenhofer. Towards an Aesthetics of Production.
11. http://www.golob-gm.si/5-marcel-duchamp-as-rectified-readymade/k-tzanck-check-
investing-in-mutt.htm
Thierry de Duve. Marcel Duchamp, or The Phynancier of Modern Life. October, Vol. 52,
Spring, 1990, pp. 60-75.
12. https://archive.org/stream/voyageaupaysdela00pawl/voyageaupaysdela00pawl_djvu.txt
G. Le Pawlowsky. Voyage au Pays de la Quatrième Dimension”.
13. https://www.metmuseum.org/research-centers/leonard-a-lauder-research-center/research-
resources/modern-art-index-project/tzanck
14. Futurism%20and%20The%20Fourth%20Dimension.pdf
Linda Dalrymple Henderson. Italian Futurism and “The Fourth Dimension”. Source: Art
Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4, Futurism (Winter, 1981), pp. 317-323.
15. https://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjf14vT8L6CAxUtgf0HHfIRD_
Y4PBAWegQIBxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdequeviveunartista.files.wordpress.com
%2F2022%2F10%2Fmoney-is-no-object.pdf%3Fforce_download
%3Dtrue&usg=AOvVaw2Ud9gyUHJo8zrkQnIaluwk&opi=89978449
Francis Neumann. Money Is No Object. 2002.
16. https://www.toutfait.com/issues/issue_2/Articles/velthuis.html
Olav Velthuis. Duchamp’s Financial Documents: Exchange as a Source of Value.

ESSAY TITLE 13
17. https://web.stanford.edu/~davies/Symbsys100-Spring0708/Marx-Commodity-
Fetishism.pdf
K. Marx. The Capital. Section 4. The fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof.
18. The Little Review 10 (Fall/Winter, 1924-25), reprinted in Sanouilletand Peterson, Writ-
ings, p. 185.
19.
https://monoskop.org/images/a/ae/Marcel_Duchamp_Interview_with_James_Johnson_Sween
ey.pdf
James Nelson. Marcel Duchamp. Interview with James Johnson Sweeney. Edited and with an
introduction.
20. http://www.golob-gm.si/24e-Interview-with-Marcel-Duchamp.htm
Marcel Duchamp. The Great Trouble with Art in This Country* From an interview with
James Johnson Sweeney, The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. XIII, no. 4-5,
1946, pp. 19-21.
21. http://www.golob-gm.si/24e-Interview-with-Marcel-Duchamp.htm
Interview with James Johnson Sweeney, The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol.
XIII, no. 4-5, 1946, pp. 19-21.
22. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/19/67487/marx-after-duchamp-or-the-artist-s-two-bodies/
Boris Groys. e-flux Journal. Marx After Duchamp, or The Artist’s Two Bodies. Issue #19
October 2010.
23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778829?
searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default
%3A65c9c16d13ffceab0693d229d6de2127&seq=10
David Joselit. Marcel Duchamp’s “Monte Carlo Bond” Machine. October Vol. 59 (Winter,
1992), pp. 8-26.
24. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm
25. https://www.toutfait.com/unmaking_the_museum/Monte%20Carlo%20Bond.html
Kristina Seekamp | copyright 2004.
26.
https://monoskop.org/images/a/a9/Duchamp_Marcel_The_Essential_Writings_of_Marcel_D
uchamp.pdf
27. https://monoskop.org/images/7/7c/Duchamp_Marcel_1957_1975_The_Creative_Act.pdf
Lecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 19, 1961.
28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z11jh1XfATw&t=753s
An Interview By Richard Hamilton· Marcel Duchamp. 1961.

ESSAY TITLE 14
29. https://centenaireduchamp.blogspot.com/2016/08/4-rrose-selavy-remise-lendroit.html
Marc Vayer. Rrose Sélavy démasquée(2015).
30. Alain Boton. Marcel Duchamp by himself p. 90.
31. https://idus.us.es/bitstream/handle/11441/144350/Duchamp_Lara-Barranco.pdf?
sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Martín-Ruíz, Paco Lara-Barranco. Duchamp y el procedimiento de Roussel (malentendidos
hermenéuticos).
32. https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cBALRpq
33. Le Libertinage 1924: Avant-lire 1964 in Aragon 1983 : 15).
34
https://monoskop.org/images/5/57/Duve_Thierry_de_Pictorial_Nominalism_On_Marcel_Du
champs_Passage_from_Painting_to_the_Readymade.pdf
Duve, Thierry_de.
Pictorial_Nominalism_On_Marcel_Duchamps_Passage_from_Painting_to_the_Readymade.
35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18352/relief.924
Bert Jansen. More about Duchamp’s wordplay.
36. http://www.golob-gm.si/4-three-standard-stoppages-marcel-duchamp/l-alchemical-
thought-of-marcel-duchamp.htm
Arturo Schwarz, “The Alchemist Stripped Bare in the Bachelor, Even,” in Anne d’Harnon-
court and Kynaston McShine (eds.), Marcel Duchamp, MoMA, New York, 1973, pp. 81-89.
37. https://archive.org/details/satieseenthrough0000sati/page/168/mode/2up
Volta Ornella(editor). Satie seen through his letters.
38. https://www.toutfait.com/voisins-du-zerohermaphroditism-and-velocity/?print=print
Mauricio Cruz. Voisins du Zero: Hermafroditismo y Velocidad.
39. https://www.poems.com.sg/glossary/stocks/half-stock/
40. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2017/09/pending-lucy-ivess-case-for-
florine-stettheimer
Harriet Staff. Lucy Ives’s Case for Florine Stettheimer.
41. Florine Stettheimer. Crystal Flowers: Poems and a Libretto.
42. https://www.cairn.info/revue-transversalites-2015-3-page-115.htm
Quentin Meillassoux Le Nombre de Mallarmé. Dans Transversalités 2015/3 (n° 134).
43. Jacques Scherer. Le «Livre» de Mallarmé. Premières recherches sur les documents in-
édits. 1957.

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