Materials: mahogany, toy trains, fiberglass and epoxy resin, bicycle parts and gold leaf. Size: 63 in. tall, Bicycle wheel 26 In. This piece was inspired by an article written by William Anastasi,"Duchamp on the Jarry Road," which appeared in the September 1991 issue of Artforum. In the article, Anastasi explores Duchamp's lifelong literary references to the work of French absurdist Alfred Jarry. One of these references is to Jarry's "Le Surmale", a story where a five-man bicycle team races a train. This sculpture, which is composed of a bicycle fork and a wheel, relate to and reference Marcel Duchamp's 1913 found object assemblage. However, in this work, there is little that is "found". Moreover, traditional art materials have been used to create a finely crafted piece of "furniture" that is metaphorical and is compounded by a sense of irony. The elegance of mahogany contrasts with the animal exercise cage image that the movement of the wheels creates. The movement of the train is a local illusion, as it continually goes over the same ground as the wheel turns backwards. This is not so much a criticism of the absurdist process in art, as explored by Duchamp, as it is an acknowledgement of what is now a venerable and honored tradition.
"On the Jarry Road"
Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery presents
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Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery presents 
