Vertigo: Marcel Duchamp and Mark Titchner

My proposal and the methodology for this curatorial project was to invite Mark Titchner to view and handle Duchamp’s ‘Rotoreliefs’ and the ‘Rotorelief Machine’ held in the special collections of the library at Chelsea College of Art and Design in order to elicit a dialogue between Titchner and myself and to establish the true origins of Titchner’s interest in rotoscopic art. From these discussions I worked on the selection, presentation, and placement of works to create a visual interpretation of the dialogue whilst Titchner would create a candid text outlining the origins of his interests as discussed. Independently I made a film relating to the ‘Rotoreliefs’ and he made a new film work relating to the themes of our discussion. The two films were seen for the first time in the Chelsea space installation.

The exhibition included two DVD films, a framed Vertigo LP record, plans for making a ‘Dreamachine’, Duchamp’s ‘Rotorelief’ discs, a velvet–covered ‘Rotorelief’ machine and a major rotoscopic work by Mark Titchner entitled UR TEXT which was a prototype for one of his works displayed in the Turner Prize exhibition in 2006/7. Part of the curatorial process involved designing new display cases for the ‘Rotoreliefs’ which would afford an intimate experience of the fragile discs whilst providing adequate protection and conservation conditions.

A twenty four page illustrated publication accompanied the exhibition (ISBN 978-1-906203-00-9) with a preface by me, an introduction by Mark Titchner and an interview between Titchner and Lisa Le Feuvre.

This is part of my ongoing curatorial project at Chelsea space to expose creative processes, revisit artworks and archives and re-present them for a contemporary audience. Kultureflash (issue 200) commented in its review of ‘Vertigo’ “ Chelsea space has developed a sense of laboratory and here it continues to deliver”.