We invite proposals that treat the selected themes as occasions for critical, speculative, or formal interventions. The topics depart from Marcel Duchamp but are encouraged to approach with a broader outlook. Contributions may take the shape of reconstructions, alternative histories, corrections, instructions, readings, maps, exercises in reception, or other devices capable of producing an echo rather than a commentary.

Selected contributors will be invited to take part in The Re-Echo Club at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice, between September and November 2026. Applications are anonymous, and applicants will be contacted via the telephone number they provide. Abstracts must not exceed 3,000 characters and should be submitted through the Google Form, together with the required information by July 15th. No identifying details should appear in the abstract.
Apply here

The themes of the Club are listed below.

1. The great artist of tomorrow will go underground
In a 1961 interview, Duchamp claimed that ‘the great artist of tomorrow will go underground’. His retreat into chess and apparent withdrawal from artistic production have often been read as a refusal of the art market’s demand for visibility. Yet the secret making of Étant donnés, revealed only after his death, unsettles this narrative. Rather than disappearing from the art system, Duchamp seemed to delay his return, turning secrecy itself into a form of afterlife.
This theme departs from this contradiction and tests the idea of the underground against the conditions of in/visibility within the arts today. What has the underground become, and is it possible to resist the absorption of secrecy and opacity into the art market?

2. arrhes : art = merdre : merde
Play has taken a special role in the arts, as it has often been seen as a reawakening to a childlike freedom. Rather than mere entertainment and lightness, play can become an artistic strategy to activate the spectator, to destabilise, mislead, and unsettle.
From Duchamp’s puns, chess and alter egos, the surrealist games, fluxus scores, game art or social play, this theme reflects on when play as a method remains a tool to disruption and when it becomes a phenomenon the art market has already adapted to.

3. Curating Ambiguity
The ambiguity of authorship is central to Duchamp’s work, from his play with alter egos to his use of industrial objects. To present his work is to ask how this ambiguity might be preserved, not as a problem to be solved, but as a condition to be held open. Further, a curatorial project relying on collections or archives necessarily destabilises the idea of authorship, compiling makers, contexts, fragments, and histories.
How can an exhibition based on research and with the archive as its foundation dissolve the roles of curator, interpreter, collector, and artist, and how much guidance should an institution provide to this layered ambiguity?

Format
Public talk: A presentation or conversation as part of the Re-Echo Club public programme.
Written contribution: A contribution to a DOCS format on the NERO website (15,000 characters).

Eligibility
Applicants must be
Based in Italy
Under 35 years old

Offer
Accommodation
Travel costs

Timeline
Selected participants should be available for a short interview and will be notified shortly after. The first three events will take place between September and October.

The Re-Echo Club is a public program curated by Elena Di Battista e Zoë Wismeth. The selection process will be conducted by Elena Di Battista, Zoë Wismeth, Wolfgang Scheppe, and Nero Editions.

CONTACT
Zoë Wismeth: zoe.wismetharsenale.com
Elena Di Battista: elena.di.battistaarsenale.com
arsenale.com