Please Touch: Marcel Duchamp and the Fetish

A reconsideration of Duchampian erotics in the context of fetishism

Eroticism served as an enduring and potent guiding principle for Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) as he traced his singular path through 20th-century art. Duchamp himself acknowledged that eroticism was visible or conspicuous, or, at any rate, underlying … the basis of everything I was doing. Titled after one of Duchamp’s most fetishistic works, Priere de toucher (Please Touch) (1947), a foam-rubber breast enveloped in black velvet, this volume investigates themes of eroticism and fetishism in Duchamp. Paul B. Franklin, an independent scholar and curator based in Paris, parses five interrelated themes: the readymade as fetish object; the fetishization of miniature replicas and mechanical reproductions as originals; fetishism and gender play; fetish materials such as leather, vinyl, foam rubber and metallic paper; and, finally, Duchamp’s fetishistic multiplication of his artistic identity, most notably in his drag persona Rose (later Rrose) Selavy.