Untypotranslation, 2004
Exhibited: Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2005; Mori Gallery, Sydney, 2004
artist notes
In 1934, Marcel Duchamp issued The Green Box, a collection of facsimiles of a selection of notes and diagrams, many of which pertained to his project The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, also known as The Large Glass. In 1960, Richard Hamilton and George Heard Hamilton published an English ‘typo-translation’ of The Green Box, transposing Duchamp's hand-written notes and drawings into typographic form.
In 2001, whilst undertaking research at the Art Gallery of New South Wales library, I came across correspondence from Richard Hamilton’s London gallery, enclosed within the catalogue Image and Process, which included a page of typed notes, authored by Hamilton, of very precise instructions about the unpacking, handling and installation of his print works in a touring exhibition.
My work, Untypotranslation, takes these notes as the starting point for a transposition of my own, a translation from written language into diagrammatic, visual symbols; in effect, reversing the order of translation that Hamilton and Heard Hamilton had applied to Duchamp. The ‘untypotranslation’ unfolds across collages on 18 clear acrylic panels, echoing Duchamp's use of transparency in The Large Glass, and Hamilton’s manipulation of found imagery in his Pop collages. The work also refers to the use of ‘universal’, non-language based symbols, such as in safety diagrams.
The attempt at an ‘untypotranslation’ of Hamilton’s notes made apparent the difficulties in using one form (in this case, visual symbols) to explicate another (language). The tension inherent in any translation – the circuits of reading and transformations of meaning – were highlighted.
The work also examines the motivations for Hamilton to provide such instructions which, as his gallerist notes in the cover letter, are standard museum practice anyway. Primarily, the aim is preventative conservation, an attempt to ensure longevity of works by ‘preventing’ mishap, by arresting changes over time. But aren’t these forces that Hamilton (and institutions) resist – change, chance, the accidental – the very forces that Duchamp often embraced? On seeing The Large Glass, after it was smashed to pieces during transportation, Duchamp is said to have remarked that the work he had previously deemed ‘definitively unfinished’ was, at last, complete.
Exhibited: Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2005; Mori Gallery, Sydney, 2004
artist notes
In 1934, Marcel Duchamp issued The Green Box, a collection of facsimiles of a selection of notes and diagrams, many of which pertained to his project The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, also known as The Large Glass. In 1960, Richard Hamilton and George Heard Hamilton published an English ‘typo-translation’ of The Green Box, transposing Duchamp's hand-written notes and drawings into typographic form.
In 2001, whilst undertaking research at the Art Gallery of New South Wales library, I came across correspondence from Richard Hamilton’s London gallery, enclosed within the catalogue Image and Process, which included a page of typed notes, authored by Hamilton, of very precise instructions about the unpacking, handling and installation of his print works in a touring exhibition.
My work, Untypotranslation, takes these notes as the starting point for a transposition of my own, a translation from written language into diagrammatic, visual symbols; in effect, reversing the order of translation that Hamilton and Heard Hamilton had applied to Duchamp. The ‘untypotranslation’ unfolds across collages on 18 clear acrylic panels, echoing Duchamp's use of transparency in The Large Glass, and Hamilton’s manipulation of found imagery in his Pop collages. The work also refers to the use of ‘universal’, non-language based symbols, such as in safety diagrams.
The attempt at an ‘untypotranslation’ of Hamilton’s notes made apparent the difficulties in using one form (in this case, visual symbols) to explicate another (language). The tension inherent in any translation – the circuits of reading and transformations of meaning – were highlighted.
The work also examines the motivations for Hamilton to provide such instructions which, as his gallerist notes in the cover letter, are standard museum practice anyway. Primarily, the aim is preventative conservation, an attempt to ensure longevity of works by ‘preventing’ mishap, by arresting changes over time. But aren’t these forces that Hamilton (and institutions) resist – change, chance, the accidental – the very forces that Duchamp often embraced? On seeing The Large Glass, after it was smashed to pieces during transportation, Duchamp is said to have remarked that the work he had previously deemed ‘definitively unfinished’ was, at last, complete.