La septième face du dé: poëmes-découpages (The Seventh Side of the Die)

Marcel Duchamps La septieme face du de: poems-decoupages from 1936 is a photolithographic book of twenty paper collages that represents one of the most significant experiments in the history of the artists book, transforming the conventional format of the illustrated book into a vehicle for poetic and visual exploration that refuses the categories of both poetry and visual art. The title, The Seventh Side of the Die, refers to the impossible face of a die that has only six sides, a typical Duchampian paradox that suggests that the most interesting possibilities lie in the spaces between established categories. The poems-decoupages of the subtitle are not poems in the conventional sense but arrangements of cut-out words and images that create meaning through juxtaposition rather than syntax, anticipating the cut-up techniques that William Burroughs would develop in the 1950s and the intermedia experiments of the Fluxus movement in the 1960s. The photolithographic reproduction of the paper collages allows Duchamp to preserve the physical texture and tonal variety of the original cut papers while producing an edition that makes the work available to multiple collectors. The Japanese-style hand-sewing and the photographically embossed cover give the book the physical presence of a devotional or esoteric object, reinforcing the suggestion that reading is a form of ritual practice. The year 1936 places this book in the period when Duchamp was supposedly devoting himself to chess rather than art, a claim that the sophistication of La septieme face du de belies.

La septieme face du de is one of the most significant artists books of the 20th century, anticipating the cut-up techniques of Burroughs and the intermedia experiments of Fluxus. The book influenced the development of the artists book as a medium and the broader tradition of conceptual and intermedia art.

A 1936 artists book by Duchamp of photolithographic paper collages with cut-out words creating meaning through juxtaposition rather than syntax, titled after the paradoxical seventh side of a die, anticipating cut-up and intermedia traditions in Japanese-style hand-sewn binding.