The Large Glass, a Close Reading
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING 36 framed selenium toned silver-gelatin photographs & text based work printed in Letterpress on cotton paper (approx. 1000 words) Read full text based work here. In 1961 Moderna Museet in Stockholm set out to produce an exhibition with several works by artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-68), who would later be known for having paved the way for conceptual art. After Duchamp had accepted the invitation it quickly became evident that he no longer had access to his original art works, and he suggested that replicas could be produced by the museum. Swedish art critic and jazz musician Ulf Linde was trusted with the task of making the replicas. In addition to several of Duchamp´s now famous readymades, Linde was to make a replica of Duchamp´s meticulously constructed glass painting La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même, also known as The Large Glass. Duchamp had himself spent more than eight years completing this complex large two-panel glass painting. When Linde initiated the work, the exhibition was only three months away. The original was in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and it was too fragile to be transported to Sweden, after being broken in transit following a previous exhibition. Linde’s claustrophobia quickly ruled out him flying to Philadelphia to see the original. All he had to base his replica on were a few high contrast black and white photographs of low quality in books where details of the work were lost in the coarse printing process, and an inaccurately hand coloured photograph by Duchamp. When it was too difficult to determine the correct colour or shading from the photographs, Linde would contact Duchamp, who was living in New York. More often than not, Duchamp´s reply was both cryptic and open to interpretation.  Prior to the exhibition in Stockholm Duchamp certified the replica by signing it, making it the first out of three sanctioned replicas of The Large Glass. Linde was worried about the accuracy of his copy, but during his stay in Stockholm Duchamp assured him that the replica was of excellent quality. As colour photographs of the original in Philadelphia surfaced in the following years, Linde was made painstakingly aware that his replica was indeed very different from the original: the colours were incorrect, the wrong materials had been used etc. He asked himself why Duchamp had not mentioned any of this during his inspection of the work. He later obtained Duchamp´s permission to continue the work on the replica, but Linde was never fully satisfied with the results. He stopped working on the glass some 30 years after it was initiated. Following this a more accurate new replica was produced for Moderna Museets collection, unauthorized by Duchamp and produced posthumously. Today both replicas are key pieces in Moderna Museets collection, which holds one of the most comprehensive and important collections of Duchamp in the world. The work The Large Glass, A Close Reading (1961 + 1992) consists of a photographic close reading of the two replicas in the collection of Moderna Museet, and a text-based work that tells the story of Ulf Linde and the cumbersome process behind the construction of the two replicas. The Large Glass, A Close Reading was first presented in the show Dislocating Surfaces - New Scandinavian Photography at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, 2016. The project is generously supported by Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Photographic Fund & Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond. http://www.espengleditsch.com/pdf/the_large_glass.pdfshapeimage_2_link_0
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING (TEXT), 2016 33X45 CM X3 LETTERPRESS ON COTTON PAPER READ TEXT HEREhttp://www.espengleditsch.com/pdf/the_large_glass.pdfshapeimage_3_link_0
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING, 2016 INSTALLATION VIEW, KUNSTNERNES HUS, OSLO
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING #1 (1961 + 1992), 2016 12 SILVER GELATIN PRINTS ON BARYTA PAPER, SELENIUM TONED 84X104 CM
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING #2 (1961 + 1992), 2016 12 SILVER GELATIN PRINTS ON BARYTA PAPER, SELENIUM TONED 84X104 CM
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING #3 (1961 + 1992), 2016 12 SILVER GELATIN PRINTS ON BARYTA PAPER, SELENIUM TONED 84X104 CM
THE LARGE GLASS, A CLOSE READING (TEXT), 2016 (DETAIL) 33X45 CM X4 LETTERPRESS ON COTTON PAPER READ TEXT HEREhttp://www.espengleditsch.com/pdf/the_large_glass.pdfshapeimage_8_link_0
INSTALLATION VIEW (DETAIL), KUNSTNERNES HUS, 2016 SILVER GELATIN PRINT ON BARYTA PAPER, SELENIUM TONED
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