Dear Reader,

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© 1999 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris. Tu m', 1918

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Tout-Fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal. About six months ago, we sent word to Duchamp scholars, scientists and art historians around the world introducing the idea of the first online journal devoted to Marcel Duchamp and his circle. We are very pleased to announce the arrival of Issue #1, including articles and notes by Craig Adcock, André Gervais and Francis M. Naumann. Tout-Fait’s News section features the collaboration of Rhonda Roland Shearer, Stephen Jay Gould and noted conservators on important findings on Duchamp’s Standard Stoppages (1913/14) and his Green Box of 1934. Artists William Anastasi and Donald Shambroom tackle questions of glass and cracks throughout Duchamp’s oeuvre. And we are honored to present Jean Suquet’s The Large Glass. A Guided Tour (1992) in both French and English. Like André Gervais, Suquet is a poet as well as art historian and greatly adds another dimension to Duchamp scholarship.

You may wonder, why "Tout-Fait"? The term "tout fait" was not only the standard French translation for ready made but also a phrase often used by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré who was a crucial influence on Duchamp. Rhonda Roland Shearer first commented upon the term in The Sciences and it was recently picked up by Thomas Zaunschirm in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Barry Cipra in Science. After heavily debating about twenty other suggestions (among them The Oculist Witness, Mirrorical Messenger and The Sunny Apprentice) as well as Duchamp’s idea for Space Art News (expressed in a letter to Marcel Jean, 4 August 1955), we finally agreed on "Tout-Fait," highlighting the intersection of art and science.

As every Duchamp afficionado might have noticed right away, the colorful squares of Tout-Fait’s design are loosely based on the sequence of rectangular shapes (reminiscent of a book of color filters for light experiments or photography) in Duchamp’s last painting, Tu m’ of 1918. Tout-Fait’s next issue will feature more squares, making room for literature, streaming video, our tri-annual centerfold and a 'Letters to the Editor' section. For letters intended for publication, criticism and suggestions or any technical problems, please contact us directly at info@toutfait.com. (Note: e-mails which were sent to info@toutfait.com and editor@toutfait.com were never received. Those are invalid accounts and we are sorry for any confusion this may have caused.) To start or participate in a dialogue regarding Tout-Fait and related matters, we suggest using the Critical Notes Bulletin Board of the Marcel Duchamp World Community as a forum to generate any kind of discussion. Feel free to post your thoughts!

A strictly not-for-profit journal, Tout-Fait is made possible by a team effort of writers, editors and web designers and relies on the commitment of our readers and the kind support of individuals to keep it up and running. In particular, we wish to thank Jacqueline Matisse-Monnier for her interest and substantial support of this project. Many thanks also to Tim Kummerow on the West Coast for his unfailing collaboration and computer wizardry.

Enjoy browsing, stay a while and spread the word.

Thomas Girst
Editor-in-Chief

For more Duchamp related websites, click here for links.