Un Duchamp peut en cacher un autre. Jeux de mots et d’images
A Duchamp can hide another: Playing with words and images
Published on Friday, June 20, 2025
Abstract
This workshop will bring together critical contributions from the human and social sciences, and aims to grasp through his playing with words and images what Marcel Duchamp took pains to hide, or what was at stake in his games of hide-and-seek with the viewers who “make the work”.
Announcement
Argument
Marcel Duchamp's work has provoked infinite commentary and countless pages of exegesis, yet it resists interpretation time and again, because it is so "plastic", offering one face, then another, sometimes in opposition to the first, like the figure of Janus. Indifference seems to drive it as much as suffering, rationality as much as alchemy, war and pacifism, resistance and passivity, misogyny and eroticism, spirituality and atheism. Skilled at hiding his motivations and beliefs behind language and visual games, was Marcel Duchamp holding up a mirror to his contemporaries to reveal theirs?
This workshop will bring together critical contributions from the human and social sciences, and aims to grasp through his playing with words and images what Duchamp took pains to hide, or what was at stake in his games of hide-and-seek with the viewers who “make the work”. Was this an "infra-thin" doorway to what the period, decision-makers or the collective unconscious sought to conceal, an agent to derail the train of certainties so that they are blown up and those actively manipulating them unmasked, or a protection against personal demons?
In order to situate the project's theme in the extra-rational realm of language play, we are inviting contributions whose title (or part of their title) takes up or is inspired by one of Duchamp's adages, or by an idea inspired by his work.
By way of example only:
The game is not over
A throw of the dice will never abolish chance
Opposition and sister squares are reconciled
Going backwards
Found object Lost object
The wheel turns
A retarder
The chocolate grinder
Indifferance
...
Submission guidelines
The 20-minute presentations will be in French or English. They will take place in presence only (but video access to listeners will be provided). Proposals in the form of a 500-word abstract with key words and a short biography must reach the organizers Thierry Wendling (thierry.wendling@cnrs.fr), Octave Debary (octave.debary@free.fr) and Christine Vial Kayser (christine.vial-kayser@cyu.fr )
by July 13, 2025
Important information
We shall let you know by the end of July whether your presentation has been selected.
Please let us know if you have any way of financing your trip (our budget is limited).
Organisation
- Laboratoire Héritages (UMR 9022, CY Cergy Paris Université, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture)
- Centre d'Anthropologie Culturelle (UPR 4545, CANTHEL, Université Paris Cité)
- Maison de la Recherche SHS Annie Ernaux (Cergy-Pontoise)
Subjects
- Ethnology, anthropology (Main category)
- Mind and language > Thought
- Society > Ethnology, anthropology > Cultural anthropology
- Mind and language > Representation > History of art
- Periods > Modern > Twentieth century
- Mind and language > Language
- Mind and language > Representation
- Society > Sociology > Sociology of culture
Places
- 33, Boulevard du Port, 95000 Cergy
Cergy-Pontoise, France (95000)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Sunday, July 13, 2025
Attached files
Keywords
- Duchamp, jeu, image
Contact(s)
- Thierry Wendling
courriel : thierry [dot] wendling [at] cnrs [dot] fr - Christine Vial Kayser
courriel : christine [dot] vial-kayser [at] cyu [dot] fr - Octave Debary
courriel : octave [dot] debary [at] free [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Thierry Wendling
courriel : thierry [dot] wendling [at] cnrs [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Un Duchamp peut en cacher un autre. Jeux de mots et d’images », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Friday, June 20, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1469n
