Esquivons les Ecchymoses des Esquimaux aux mots Exquis

<p>In Marcel Duchamp’s cover for <em>SMS (Shit Must Stop)</em>, no. 2, 1968, he reprised a design that he first realized in 1925, and that was featured as one of nine in his experimental film Anemic Cinema in 1926. This disk, which is in fact a record, expresses Duchamp’s longstanding fascination with optical experiments, as well as puns and word games. The sentence <em>Esquivons les Ecchymoses des Esquimaux aux mots Exquis</em> must be read aloud in French in order to manifest its tongue-twister-like qualities. This type of word game, called a <em>contrepèterie</em> in France, consists of transposing syllables or phonemes of select words so that they form new ones, twisting the meaning of a sentence. Always witty, and often bawdy or raunchy, the genre is known as a “spoonerism” in English. Losing its alliteration in translation, the text roughly translates as: “let’s dodge the bruises of the Eskimos with (our) exquisite words.”</p> <p>For the <em>SMS</em> issue, the spiraling poem is printed on paper and affixed to a wax record. If played on a record player, we hear a seven-minute recording of Duchamp reading aloud excerpts from his previous works, including <em>Written Wrotten</em> (1939-1940) and the <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/244623"><em>Green Box</em></a>. The disk is pinned to the front cover of folder that serves as the enclosure for the rest of the works in <em>SMS</em> issue #2. The back of the folder features another Duchamp pun: “A guest + a host = a ghost, Marcel Duchamp 1953.”</p>