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Fig. 1 Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel (1951; replica after lost original of 1913), bicycle wheel on wooden stool, 50 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 16 5/8". New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. 

Initially it seemed to me that one of the things that differentiate the object from sculpture has to do with volume: after all, scupture [[sculpture]] traditionally is concerned with the creation and dispositions of volumes and masses and the reciprocal evocations each is capable of producing of the other within space. The space is displaced, activated, energized, or created by the arrangements of volumes, masses, and suggestions of them, and the spaces that are voids or intervals among these elements are of great importance. Now it seemed to me that Duchamp's Readymades such as Bicycle Wheel (Fig. 1) and Bottlerack managed to occupy and activate a good deal of space but with a minimum of actual volume and with little suggestion of mass. Cubist collage and constructions 

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Fig. 2 Alberto Giacometti, The Palace at 4 A.M. 1932-33, wood, glass, wire, string, 25 x 28 1/4 x 15 3/4. New York, The Museum of Modern Art.

seemed to do something similar, in that they had much of their volumes converted into planes that involved a good deal of space (and spatial intervals) with very little actual volume. From these points of view I could see much later "sculpture," such as Calder's mobiles and stabiles, Ibram Lassaw's linear skeletons, Gonzales's collaborations with Picasso, and certain early works of Giacometti, as formally at least, extensions of the Duchamp/Cubist "no-volume" idea.

Another property of what I considered objects that struck me was subject matter. Sculpture as it is ordinarily understood is pretty much centered on the figure, but objects often seem to involve very rare sculptural subjects, especially still life. When one thinks about it, there are very few sculptures (other than reliefs) before the twentieth century where still life is dealt with except at some inescapable concomitant of the central figurative images - I am thinking of things such as the instruments of martyrdom held by saints and of the jewelry, armor, and weapons of some portraits - or in the special categories of the military or artistic trophy. We are all familiar with the piles of armor and weapons that already appear as three-dimensional sculpture. The military trophy, such as the cannon or bronze tank on the courthouse lawn, alone seems to retain the province of full round. Another subject special to the object over "ordinary" sculpture (again excepting relief) is architecture, particularly the house image.

Giacometti's Palace at Four A.M. (Fig. 2) and Westermann's Mad House (Fig. 3) show this tendency very well. Its origins are in toys, devotional models, reliquaries, and architect's projects. Reliquaries occasionally have interesting object forms besides architectural ones; other than the familiar body-part shape, the purse, bell, and even chair form are known.

It also seemed rather clear to me that in many twentieth-century objects, particularly the early ones (and especially those of Duchamp), the object was not usually fabricated out of some neutral material of more or less indeterminate form, such as bronze or marble, but was made of materials that, unlike marble and bronze, did not have connotations of art as materials; we speak, after all, of Giambologna's "bronzes" and Michelangelo's "marbles" as synonymous with sculpture and even art. Dada, Cubist, and Surrealist objects, on the other hand, are frequently composed of "non art" materials, which moreover retain some distinct sense of their previous identities and functions. Thus the object might, through its dominant image (if it has one), articulate a certain realm of subject that might be amplified, commented upon, or even contradicted by the still-discernible identities and functions of its constituent elements. It is especially in this capacity for ambiguity that there exists the great potential for the play of fantasy and imagination, even to the points of perplexity and absurdity, that were certainly important considerations in Dada and Surrealist thought.

It has subsequently become clear that the kinds of objects and materials used in Picasso's Cubist collages, papiers collés, and constructions, especially those which contain printing or writing, do refer, often wittingly, to the principal subject or to the nature of art. His Still Life with Chair Caning (1912) makes this very clear by including oilcloth as the "foreign" and illusionistic element: like painting itself, it is oil and cloth. From the perspective of the present, it is understood that Picasso's Cubist objects, collages, constructions, and sculptures aim at an integration of artistic activities and forms where the traditional

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Fig. 3 H.C. Westermann, Mad House, 1957, wood, glass, metal, various materials, 39 1/2 x 20 x 20". Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro

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