The Cracks in the Large Glass: Destruction Reclaimed as "A Readymade Intention"
On its way to the home of Duchamp’s patron Katherine Dreier in 1926, its upper and lower halves laid one atop the other in the back of a truck, the Large Glass shattered, only to be restored by its creator in the summer of 1936.1 Appraising the mended Glass in the room newly devoted to his works in the Philadelphia Museum of Art during an interview in 1955, Duchamp remarked, “…The more I look at it, the more I like the cracks, because they’re not like shattered glass. They have a shape. There’s a symmetry in the cracking. The two crackings are symmetrically disposed—and there’s almost an intention there—an extra, curious intention that I’m not responsible for—a readymade intention, in other words, that I respect and love.”2 Nearly two decades earlier, in planning the Boîte, he had already symbolically incorporated the chance event of the Large Glass’s shattering into the Glass's identity as an artwork by having each crack in the original meticulously replicated in each celluloid print reproduction using stencils.3