I once saw this piece several years back(i think it was Marcel Duchamp but I cannot find anything about it) in the tate. It was a dining table with all the cutlery, plates, food remnants,accoutrements, wine glasses, stains as they were immediately proceeding a dinner party; a visual recording of the evening, frozen if you will.
Was this Duchamp? If not who was it? Its driving me mad. I cannot find any info on it
I think the piece you are refering to was by Daniel Spoerri, an artist of Rumanian/Swiss origins. It was one of a series of works he called 'Tableau Pieges' (trapped Paintings). I once knew him well in Paris in the early 1960's when he produced his famous book, in collaboration wirth Emmett Williams, called 'The Anecdoted Topography of Chance'.