1908, Russia - 1974, Israel

The Bicycle Wheel displayed here was a commissioned work produced by Arie Aroch in Jerusalem in the late 1960s, not long after Duchamp himself made the series of replicas of his readymade works, together with Arturo Schwarz, in 1964. Aroch's Bicycle Wheel, therefore, is a contemporary of Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel - both are products of the 1960s, late replicas of the lost original. Is there a difference between the replica that Duchamp made, which is displayed on the other side of the wall, and the copy made by Aroch?

In 1964, Aroch created Agrippas Street, which is considered the most canonical readymade work of Israeli art - a Jerusalem street sign with the name of the street in three languages, combined with a slab of hand-painted wood. In 1968, Arie Aroch had a solo exhibition at the Israel Museum and on the poster for the exhibition, which he designed himself, he added in handwriting "Today we heard that Marcel Duchamp died." Aroch's affinity to Duchamp was expressed not only by using readymade objects, but also in hints that are embedded in his various works, in the enigmatic titles he gave them, and in the various layers of reading he encoded in them. Aroch can be seen as the first important Israeli artist to show interest in Duchamp, and thus as the significant link through which Duchamp's legacy seeped into Israeli art, starting in the 1970s.