Immer Muttig! 34 petites Duchamperies
par Malcolm Green
In an edition of 180 A5 copies, 36pp, choicest paper. €14
Legend has it that the signature ‘R. Mutt’ on Marcel Duchamp’s famous ready-made Fountain, which was submitted to the Society of Independents exhibition in New York in 1917 but not publicly presented, is a play on the German word ‘Armut’ or poverty. The syllable ‘mut’ appears in many German words, and means variously cheer, courage, or disposition, depending on the word’s overall meaning. The mut/mutt variations in this slim volume have been roughly translated in the back of the book for the English-speakign audience.
MD: I don’t believe in the word ‘being’. The idea of being is a human invention.
PC.: Being is very poetic.
MD.: No, not at all. It’s an essential concept, which doesn’t exist at all in reality, and which I don’t believe in, though people in general have a cast-iron belief in it… No one ever thinks of not believing in ‘I am,’ no? M. Duchamp, Dialogues, New York, 1987, p.89