Dust Breeding is a historic collaboration between Marcel Duchamp and his close friend Man Ray. The photograph records the intricate texture of accumulated dust on a glass surface, documenting the surface of The Large Glass after it had been left to gather dust for a year.

The image marks a pivotal moment in the development of Duchamp’s masterpiece The Large Glass and reveals the playfulness with which Duchamp approached perception and representation. Following the photograph, Duchamp wiped the glass almost entirely clean, intentionally preserving a section of the cones covered in dust, which he then permanently fixed to the surface using varnish. By tightening the framing and introducing a subtly disorienting cropping, the photograph generates a disorientating tension between the microscopic and the monumental. What is, at its core, an accumulation of microscopic debris is transformed into something vast and expansive, similar to an overview of the Nazca plain or aerial photography.