BLM (Bôite Labels & Models)

A paper sculpture study of Why not Sneeze by Rrose Selavy, and accompanying labels I forgot until I heard Michelle Kuo mention it again on Modern Art Notes Podcast, but one of the real discoveries of the Marcel Duchamp retrospective was the large vitrine stuffed with studies, preparatory materials, and extras from the Bôites-en-valise. There are various photos and experiments with folded photo sculptures of Why Not Sneeze? by Rose Sélavy (1921), on the way to making the sliced, curved, pop-up book-style photo that ended up in the deluxe edition. But there’s also a papier-mâché model of Fountain. Can you just see Duchamp carefully crafting this tiny toilet, with his little bowl of slop at his elbow, while nazis roam the streets of Paris? But my favorite things, or the things I was most surprised to see, were the labels. Stacks of labels for every object in the Bôite. Oh, no, unused labels where there ended up being no place to put them. Like for Fountain. Ironically, the clearest image…