Zero Sharp explores patents of Roussel, Brisset, Duchamp at West den Haag

The Berlin-based collective Zero Sharp, led by Maximilian Gillessen and Anton Stuckardt, curates the exhibition "Alphabetum I: Roussel/Brisset/Duchamp: Engineers of the Infra-Thin" at West den Haag in The Hague, running from February 16 to June 16, 2019. The show presents patented inventions by Raymond Roussel, Jean-Pierre Brisset, and Marcel Duchamp—objects that blend technology and dreamlike imagination. These include a swimming belt by Brisset, a thermal insulation device by Roussel, and an optical illusion disc (Rotoreliefs) by Duchamp. Zero Sharp discovered that each creator temporarily paused their artistic or literary work to pursue these commercially unsuccessful inventions, filing patents with technical diagrams. The exhibition treats these gadgets as artworks in their own right, linking them to the creators' broader concerns: Brisset's amphibian mythology, Roussel's writing process, and Duchamp's spectator theory. The show builds on the legacy of Harald Szeemann, whose influence is seen in recent exhibitions like Massimiliano Gioni's 2013 Venice Biennale and "The Keeper" at New Museum (2016). Zero Sharp recently published the first German translation of Michel Carrouges's "Les Machines célibataires" (1954), a key text for Szeemann. The exhibition is set in the brutalist architecture of West den Haag.