Transcript

Nelson Automatic Cooker/Deep Fryer, 1979. From the time that I moved to New York, I began working with readymade objects. I was working with inflatable flowers, and I wanted to contribute to the Duchampian tradition of the readymade. I worked at the Museum of Modern Art, and so at lunchtime I would go to the architecture design department. I’d be looking at objects, and I thought I could display newness. I could make this very ethereal and ephemeral aspect of newness have a visual quality. So I would buy brand new objects and I would display them. If you look at the Nelson Automatic Cooker/Deep Fryer, the tubes that are in the back of it have fluorescent sticks, and they’re there to display the object for its newness.