Poems
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Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy
By Alex GallagherEros by any other name arrested
distill those androgyne words of love
to spill like ink and ignite and expire
without language to (s)peak of — -
Buenos Aires does not exist
By David Stavanger?
I have never boarded a steamship.
The closest I have been to Buenos Aires is an amazing steak
at the local. I sleep in the city that sleeps. -
Nude descending a staircase 1937
By David AstleStare and the cels coalesce
into streaming nudeness,
one staircascade
built of raw spilt, sprayed -
Interior, Arensbergs’ Apartment, New York
By Alex GallagherThe body edges against its tensions
each motion captured disrupting the rhythms
as ambiguous sinew stretches out and over
in that frenetic gesture of human autonomy -
Chocolate grinder (no 1)
By Alex GallagherBittersweet spiral with machine-made lungs
the whirring hum of a nascent grind
swivel of drums oscillating in time
like the saccharine pirouette -
'Marcel Duchamp's Installation "Lazy Hardware," Gotham Book Mart, New York', early 1960s
By Brian Fuata
In response to Maya Deren's 'Marcel Duchamp's Installation "Lazy Hardware," Gotham Book Mart, New York’, early 1960s. -
looking augments itself (On Critique by Dave Beech plus Anémic Cinéma)
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Heinrich Hoffmann's 'Portrait of Marcel Duchamp' 1912.
Source text: ‘On Critique’ by Dave Beech in Art Monthly, February 2016. -
portable museum maintenance hinge
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Marcel Duchamp's 'The Box of 1914' 1913–14.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.
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Rotorelief
By Evelyn Araluenmy song spins, sings
the planets each their centre
rotate each relief
so desire -
Portrait no. 29 (Double exposure: full face and profile)
By Alex GallagherTo crack a smile is an admission of guilt
to that very serious crime of being alive
captured and preserved, collision spills into coalescence
a single pair of double negatives left exposed -
Belle Haleine: Eau de Voilette
By Evelyn AraluenDrain the bottle to drink her scent
named in a play of florals
Where different bodies dance in distance
in rose glass haze -
In the infinitive (The white box)
By David AstleTo mill,
To mull
In the infinitive.
To ravel, -
what was what before anything was anything
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Eliot Elisofon's 'Duchamp Talking to People in Gallery about "Why Not Sneeze Rrose Sélavy" at "Three Brothers" Exhibition, Houston' 1957.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition a… -
The Bride
By Evelyn AraluenWanting in pieces
hanging fixed in stale time
Sky and dusked light from fragment
a structure clutters to a still point -
Stair/Case
By David StavangerTo cast myself on a wall
I literally had to stop time
let the staircase ascend my body
like a dream I had where I forgot -
Hypermodern Summer, 1940: Beckett cheese/Pocket chess
By Pascalle Burton
In response to marcel Duchamp's 'Pocket Chess Set' 1943.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.
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Portrait of chess players 1911
By David Astle
In response to Marcel Duchamp's ‘Portrait of Chess Players’ 1911.
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DaDa Reload
By David StavangerI would rather [be shot]
I would rather [be shot than kill]
I would rather [kill than be somebody]
I would rather [paint myself than kill again] -
From or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy (Box in a valise)
By Alex GallagherHow one compacts and compartments
a living body of work, beaten and breathing
two lives half lived sitting neatly in a briefcase
wrapped up in leather, untethered by its brevity
