MARCEL DUCHAMP — Duchamp, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Fernand Hazan, Paris, 1984

Fernand Hazan, Paris, 1984. Text by Jean-Christophe Bailly. Graphic design by Roman Cieslewicz. Masters of Art series. Original French edition. Softcover, 119 pages, 16 × 18 cm. Colour and black-and-white reproductions throughout. Original Flammarion retail price label retained to rear wrapper, priced 65 F and dated 5/88.

Published in Paris in 1984, Jean-Christophe Bailly’s compact monograph arrives after Duchamp’s transformation from difficult historical presence into one of contemporary art’s organising figures. The readymade had already shifted attention from manufacture towards selection, naming and placement; by the 1980s, Duchamp himself was being reproduced, catalogued and circulated through precisely the systems his work had helped destabilise.

Roman Cieslewicz’s graphic design makes the object particularly sharp. Duchamp’s famously altered profile dominates the cover; biography, reproductions and chronology follow inside. On the rear, a photograph of Duchamp sits above the proposition that the viewers make the pictures.

The surviving Flammarion 65-franc price label, dated 5/88, records this copy continuing through the French book trade four years after publication. Retail information that would ordinarily be removed has become part of the object’s biography: publisher, shop, price, date, owner, retention.

A mass-produced book about the artist who changed what an object could become. This copy has subsequently acquired its own small history of placement. The object remains unchanged. Its placement does not.

Condition: good. Visible handling, light edge and corner wear, surface marks and age toning consistent with use.