3 New York Dadas and The Blind Man: Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roche, Beatrice Wood - Hardcover

Henri-Pierre Roche

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1900565439 ISBN 13: 9781900565431

Publisher: Atlas Press, 2014

Synopsis

This book recounts a triangular relationship between Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood, in the words of two of its protagonists. It also reprints in facsimile the Dadaist magazine they produced together in New York in 1917: The Blind Man. The principal text is the first English translation of Roché's "novel" Victor, an account of his friendship with Duchamp (nicknamed Victor by his close friends in those days). Although unfinished, Roché's text offers a unique account of New York Dada, all of whose principal characters and events duly make an appearance: Francis Picabia, Arthur Cravan, The Arensbergs and their soirées, the Blind Man's Ball and the scandal of Duchamp's "Fountain" at the Independents exhibition, a pivotal moment in modern art. The novel further offers interesting insights into the sexual politics of the period, when a woman could be arrested, or blackmailed, for spending the night with a man to whom she was not married... Marcel Duchamp needs no introduction, being undoubtedly the most influential artist of the last century. Roché appears to have been something of a devotee of triangular relationships. He went on to write a more famous novel on the topic, also autobiographical, Jules et Jim, which became an emblematic film by François Truffaut. Beatrice Wood's account of these events are taken from her memoirs. She went on to become a celebrated ceramicist, dying in 1998 aged 105. The introduction is by Dawn Ades, a well-known scholar of Dada and Surrealism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlas Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1900565439
• ISBN 13: 9781900565431
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160