
691 features text-based works by Dadaists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Duchamp as well as illustrations by Hans Arp and Francis Picabia. Some of these pieces are detachable from the page, creating an interactive experience for the reader.
Francis Picabia was a Dadaist writer and artist who was close to Marcel Duchamp and active in avant-garde art circles of the time. In 1913 photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz curated a solo show for Picabia’s work at his gallery 291. This number became the inspiration for Picabia to create his own Dadaist publication entitled 391, which ran from 1917 to 1924.
Upon the end of the publication’s run, Picabia distanced himself from Dada and moved south, away from the chaos of Paris, but by the 1940s, the tensions across Europe had drawn Picabia back to the world of avant-garde art. It’s from this personal renaissance that Picabia, along with his artistic associates and publishing connections, produced the short work 691. The magazine was published by Pierre-Andre Benoit, an art collector and publisher of many avant-garde artists and writers of the time.