Marcel Duchamp, The Large Glass, State II

1965

This print is a study for the Large Glass, a flat, two-dimensional object, mostly transparent—with imagery of wire, foil, glue, and varnish—on which Marcel Duchamp worked for almost a decade. The work is an allegorical machine that depicts desire between anthropomorphic bachelors and a bride, engaging wit, absurdity, non-traditional materials, and conceptualism to push the boundaries of what was acceptable and possible in the art world of the artist’s generation.