Painted papier-mâché demisphere fitted on velvet-covered disk, copper collar with plexiglass dome, motor, pulley, and metal stand
Not on view
Duchamp fabricated Rotary Demisphere as a commission for the collector Jacques Doucet and with the assistance of a mechanic. The device’s papier-mâché half-sphere is housed under a plexiglass dome fitted to a disk covered in dark velvet, and the entirety is mounted on a motorized stand. When the machine is set in motion, the dome appears to pulsate hypnotically, projecting and receding in illusory space. Engraved on a copper ring around the dome’s circumference is a tongue-twisting sentence that, as Duchamp noted, “will make the object look curious even when still.”
Marcel Duchamp, April 12–August 22, 2026
Gallery label from 2024
Rotary Demisphere is one of several works in which Duchamp experimented with mechanisms that produce optical effects. When set in motion, the circles appear to pulsate. The copper ring around the dome’s circumference is engraved with French words whose sounds echo one another: Rrose Sélavy et moi esquivons les ecchymoses des esquimaux aux mots exquis, in English, “Rrose Sélavy and I dodge the Eskimos’ bruises with exquisite words” (Eskimo is a now outdated term referring to Indigenous peoples from the Arctic). Rrose Sélavy is a persona that Duchamp debuted in 1920 as part of his broader investigation of identity, authorship, and the boundaries of conventional art.
Provenance Research Project
This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.
Jacques Doucet (1853-1929), Paris/Neuilly [1]; by inheritance to Jeanne Roger-Doucet (Jacques Doucet's widow), Neuilly, 1929; given to Henri-Pierre Roché (1879-1959), Paris, 1930 [2]; by inheritance to Denise Roché (Henri-Pierre Roché's widow), Paris, 1959-c. 1961 [3]; Cordier & Ekstrom, New York; sold to Mary Sisler, New York, 1963 [4]; The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Gift of Mrs. William Sisler and Edward James Fund), 1970.
[1] Commissioned in 1924. See Schwarz 1997, no. 409.
[2] Scarlett et Philippe Reliquet, Henri-Pierre Roché: l'enchanteur collectionneur, Paris: Ramsay, 1999, pp. 201-02. Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, New York: Henry Holt, 1997, p. 295.
[3] Francis Naumann, Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Ghent and Amsterdam: Ludion Press, 1999, p. 214.
[4] Mary and William Sisler Papers, II.4. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Included in the exhibition Not Seen and/or Less Seen of/by Marcel Duchamp/Rrose Sélavy, 1904-1964. Mary Sisler Collection, Cordier & Ekstrom, New York, January 14-February 13, 1965 (no. 75).
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Marcel Duchamp
American, born France. 1887–1968 188 works onlineWhen Marcel Duchamp created his most famous work—the industrially produced urinal Fountain —it was largely ignored. Fountain was the high point of Duchamp’s campaign to dismantle and expand the boundaries of what constitutes a work of art; it had begun four years earlier, when he asked, “Can one make works that are not ‘of art’?
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