Rotorelief: Disques Optiques
Marcel Duchamp
[Paris] : Publ. by the author in his studio, 11 rue Larey, n.d.
First, unnumbered, unsigned edition of 500 copies.
Green Library, Special Collections XX(4245697.1)

Rotoreliefs are six double-sided cardboard discs printed in color with 12 different compositions and titles and numbers printed in hand at the edges. With a lifelong interest in visual perception, optical illusions, and mechanical contraptions, Duchamp first presented his Rotoreliefs at an inventors’ fair in Paris in 1935. When viewed with through a special viewer, or on a record player rotating at a speed of 40-60 rpm, the disks reveal an optical illusion of depth, or suggest three-dimensional objects such as a balloon and a fish. The Rotoreliefs appear in Hans Richter’s film Dreams That Money Can Buy and in Jean Cocteau’s film, The Blood of a Poet, and in Duchamp’s seminal 1941 work, Bôite en Valise.