Color Swatch

Executed in 1968, Color Swatch belongs to the final, quietly subversive chapter of Marcel Duchamp’s career, when the artist distilled his lifelong interrogation of authorship and choice into gestures of striking economy. At first glance, the composition—two overlapping discs, one red, one blue, suspended against a black ground—appears almost disarmingly simple. Yet its origins lie in a moment of selection rather than invention: Duchamp chose the configuration from a group of color swatches, elevating it through the act of designation.

The present work relates to a small silkscreen project conceived in dialogue with the Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, whose close association with Duchamp underscores the collaborative and process-oriented spirit of the piece. What emerges is less a conventional work than a meditation on perception and authorship: an image that hovers between design, experiment, and readymade.