Rotoreliefs (Optical Disks)

1932–1933

Winner of the 5th IFSB correspondence championship

In the early 1930s he reached his peak as a player: in correspondence chess he had the greatest success of his career, winning the 5th IFSB championship (1932–1933); he also wrote a chess column in a magazine.

1933 – 23 July 1933

Took part in: 5th Chess Olympiad

c. 1935 – 1944

Collaboration with the Surrealists and the magazine “VVV”

He collaborated with the Surrealists but, despite André Breton’s coaxing, did not join the movement; until 1944, together with Max Ernst, Eugenio Granell and Breton, he edited the Surrealist periodical VVV, and he also served as an advisory editor of the magazine View.

1938

“Generator-Arbiter” of the International Surrealist Exhibition

At the exhibition in Paris organised by Breton and Paul Éluard he was named “Générateur-arbitre” and showed the installation Twelve Hundred Coal Bags Suspended from the Ceiling over a Stove — literally 1,200 stuffed coal bags hanging from the ceiling of the Room of Superstition.

1942

The “mile of string” at First Papers of Surrealism

Surrealists asked him to design the show in New York: he strung a three-dimensional web of twine through the rooms so that the works were almost impossible to see. By a secret arrangement with an associate’s son, a dozen children in athletic clothes turned up at the opening, kicking and passing balls and skipping rope, and told puzzled guests: “Mr. Duchamp told us we could play here”.

16 January 1954

Married: Alexina Duchamp