Curator, Ann Temkin: This was a collaboration with Walter Arensberg, an art collector. It’s a ball of twine, four screws, and two plates, into which a sort of nonsense text has been written. The text was by Sophie Treadwell, a friend of his. Walter Arensberg was a cryptographer. And these letters are as if in code.
Artist, Marcel Duchamp: Before I finished it, Arensberg put something inside the ball of twine and never told me what it was. It makes a noise, so we call this a “Readymade with a Secret Noise.” And listen to it. [Object noise]
I will never know whether it’s a diamond or a coin. And I didn’t want to know; it was a sort of secret.
Artist, Jacqueline Humphries: The desire to know is the subject. If you knew what was inside, you would never think about it again. But not knowing, you might think about it a lot. You might take it home with you in your mind.
Curator, Michele Kuo: Duchamp was devoted to opening up the work of art from something that was serious and lofty to something that takes shape over time through play.
Curator, Ann Temkin: He loved the idea of art that went beyond visual art. It’s got sound. It has nonsense language. It’s made by three people, not one. And it’s made of materials that are available to anybody at a hardware store. It’s like breaking every rule of what’s a work of art at that time.
Archival audio from: A Conversation with Marcel Duchamp: from NBC’s Wisdom Series, 1956. New York, N.Y.: Films Media Group, [2010], ©1956