The endlessly enigmatic Monsieur Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp served for many years as both a prince and court jester to modern art in the 20th century. While creating some well-known works, he also punctured pretensions with jokes, pranks, aphorisms and a perpetual hunt for new byways of art. Then he announced he was abandoning art, giving it all up to play chess. But he was not telling the truth.

He worked in secret for 20 years, assembling a huge, fanciful and puzzling diorama. When he died in 1968, only a few people knew about his secret. His obituaries were respectful but did not rank him among the giants.

A year after his death, the Philadelphia Museum of Art installed the secret work and displayed it to the public. While some patrons were shocked by its sexuality, it soon became a magnet for young artists looking for new paths to take their own work. Duchamp’s masterpiece, known as “Étant donnés,” a shortened form of its French title, is now regarded as one of the most powerful and dynamic influences on contemporary art.

Museums rarely devote an entire exhibition to a single work. But the Philadelphia museum holds "Étant donnés" in such high esteem that, on the 40th anniversary of its installation, it has mounted a show — simply titled “Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés” — that describes in great detail how Duchamp conceived and constructed the work. The show, which closes Nov. 29 and goes nowhere else, (though “Étant donnés” remains as before on permanent display), comprises more than 100 objects, including body casts, drawings, photos and other pieces that shed light on the creation. There is even a loose-leaf notebook in which Duchamp set down detailed instructions, in handwritten French, on how to take the work apart and put it back together again.

Read Stanley Meisler's account of this show about a modern landmark.

Photo: "Etant donnes," exterior. Credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art

Comments

[William Wray]

The slow deconstruction of art since the turn of the century was best optimized by Marcel Duchamp. His work had the power to shock because there was a traditional art world that was ripe for the plucking. What was so scandalous was his biting satire was not so much art it was a mocking of a pompous art world. In 1968 the culmination of his great joke found it’s home not only in the Philadelphia museum, but in the hearts of all intellectual folk artists who have lived in Duchamps echo ever since.

There is not getting around the reality that the rejection of academia (since the turn of century really) needs to come full circle. What’s exciting about the current crop of swap meet object arrangers that’s any more interesting than Duchamp’s original display? Some of it’s prettier? Is it more serious?
Current variations on academic rejection still dominate today, repeating like a 50 year skipping record. Let’s build up academic art again so the next generations current clever gathers and textile deconstruction queens can have a real art world to rebel against thus giving their work some kind of relevance. Today’s trivial art world is dead; these outdated modern museums are struggling because this old-fashioned instillation art can’t excite people. This is all an artificial market supported by the 100 millionaire corporate investors of modern art. Give the people back the art world.