Project Report: Joint Research Project by the National Center for Art Research and the Art Archives center, Tama Art University

内容詳細

The National Center for Art Research (NCAR) and the Tama Art University Art Archives Center (AAC) conducted a joint research project from FY2023 to FY2024 as the first initiative of NCAR's "research workshops on shared international issues."
This project focused on the Large Glass Tokyo Version (1980, Komaba Museum, The University of Tokyo), a replica of Marcel Duchamp's seminal work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (commonly known as The Large Glass, 1915–23, Philadelphia Museum of Art). The project aimed to establish a framework for archiving the group of preparatory studies created for the replica (Tama Art University collection) and for utilizing them as educational resources.

In FY2023, representatives from NCAR and AAC visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art to examine the Large Glass and the museum's archival materials. The archive, which contains an extensive collection of correspondence from Japan, mainly letters by Tono Yoshiaki (then a professor at Tama Art University), revealed the collaborative relationship between the Japanese side and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the realization of the Large Glass Tokyo Version. At the end of FY2023, a curator from the museum and a representative of the Association Marcel Duchamp were invited to Japan. At the Komaba Museum of the University of Tokyo, they first conducted viewings of the materials from the museum's collection and carried out related lectures. The following day, a workshop was held at Tama Art University with the relevant parties. The preparatory study and related materials in the university's collection were jointly studied during this workshop, and the detailed background of the Large Glass Tokyo Version's production was shared. This exchange led to the Association's approval for archiving the preparatory study at Tama Art University.
In FY2024, NCAR and AAC hosted an international symposium at Tama Art University at which curators, researchers, and other stakeholders from museums that hold replicas of The Large Glass exchanged information about each replica and discussed possible approaches to their use in museum settings. The symposium provided the first opportunity to share the histories and significance of the various replicas of The Large Glass by inviting curators from Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Tate Modern, along with a French artist who led a project involving an ephemeral copy of The Large Glass, and by bringing together those involved in the Large Glass Tokyo Version.

Even for a work of major importance in the history of contemporary art, projects that focus specifically on its replicas are extremely rare. By illuminating the circumstances surrounding the realization of the Large Glass Tokyo Version, this joint research project provided a forum for the comparative examination of replicas of The Large Glass held by museums in Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as a university museum in Japan. We publish this record of the research in the hope that this project will serve as a starting point for ongoing discussions on issues surrounding archives and replicas.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Association Marcel Duchamp for their understanding and permission to archive the preparatory study for the Large Glass Tokyo Version, as well as to all those who participated in and contributed to this project.