Gelatin silver print
Not on view
Duchamp served as the “generator-arbitrator” of the Exposition internationale du surréalisme, held at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1938. In collaboration with other artists, he orchestrated a dramatically disorienting, multisensory experience. Among the interventions, he filled the ceiling of the gallery’s main hall with 1,200 billowing coal sacks that drifted soot down onto visitors. A corridor designated “rue Surréaliste” featured sixteen female mannequins, each outfitted by a Surrealist artist or writer. The blond-wigged mannequin contributed by Rrose Sélavy teased the norms of gendered attire, half-dressed in Duchamp’s jacket (with a blinking red light bulb in its pocket), vest, shirt, tie, hat, and shoes.
Marcel Duchamp, April 12–August 22, 2026
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