Thursday, October 15, 2009

Marcel Duchamp's Chocolate Grinder

"Marcel took very little alcohol or food; he would simple eat what was given him. No one gave him a lot because everyone knew he didn't eat very much -- two or three peas and one bit of meat. But he did smoke cigars." (from "John Cage on Marcel Duchamp: an Interview" by Moira Roth and William Roth, 1973)
Hmm. Was this one more example of Marcel Duchamp's famous posturing? Or maybe he didn't like to eat American food, having been brought up in early 20th century France. He was indeed very skinny.

I decided to see if there was any connection between Marcel Duchamp and food, as I'm in the habit of thinking food thoughts for my food blog. So this post is more or less on both my blogs today.

The only other Marcel Duchamp-food relationship I can find is the "Chocolate Grinder," which Duchamp remade at least three times, as a readymade (an actual kitchen tool for grinding chocolate, displayed as a work of art), as a painting, and as a sketch. It appeared once on a Dada magazine cover. Duchamp described it as a bachelor machine: "The chocolate of the rollers coming from one knows not where, would deposit itself after grinding as milk chocolate... The bachelor grinds his chocolate himself..." (From The Writings of Marcel Duchamp, ed. Sanouillet and Peterson, p. 68)

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