Duchamp 1

Duchamp used a piece of glass as a palette – red, blue, green, yellow – the same seen from either side.

The past and future look pretty much the same from here. We have a saying: What goes around comes around. Any way you hold the palette of time, you can look clear through it and see what’s in your hand.

Duchamp also had this thing about ‘breaking even’. He applied it, first and foremost, to economics, believing that one should earn about as much money as one needs to live.

Breaking even is more than just a Duchampian approach to economics. It reflects life itself: You’re born, you die. Even Steven. No getting around it. The accumulation of capital cannot help you avoid eventual bankruptcy. Even the sun will burn out someday. Maybe the universe is half light and half dark, although the astronomers will tell you it’s a lot darker than that. But they haven’t been everywhere, like inside Duchamp’s head, where a palette of glass shimmers, floating in the air, its yellow green blue red visible both ways.