Celestial Threshers, 1999
Video animation 2'



In some ways, Duchamp is an alien figure in modern art. His artistic investigation was so disruptive that it truly placed him in another dimension when compared to previous, contemporary and even subsequent artistic production. The work of this extraordinary artist has anticipated practically every aspect of contemporary art. He touched all mediums, from cinema to painting, performance, photography and cybernetics. He initiated ex nihilo ready-made and conceptual art. The spark that fuelled the idea of this project came when I connected crop circles—enormous drawings on fields of grain that are often attributed to other worldly visits—to the photographs that Man Ray took of what I consider Duchamp’s ultimate masterpiece: The Large Glass. Duchamp spent seventeen years completing this enigmatic work of art. It is composed of two sheets of glass that enclose wire elements. Duchamp abandoned the artwork for several years, leaving it lying on the ground where it gathered a great deal of dust. The artist liked the idea that he was creating a dust farm. Then Man Ray then took photographs of this dusty landscape. Duchamp is in the middle of a vast field, as he glances at an alien spaceship leaving strange marks on the ground, which is the very image that Man Ray captured in his photograph of The Large Glass. Extraterrestrials leave an alien message impressed in the landscape, one that the artist will need in order to realize his masterpiece.