Étant donnés
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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It is made of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs, a female form made of leather, glass, linoleum, and an electric motor. Duchamp prepared a "Manual of Instructions" in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating how to assemble and disassemble the piece. | It is made of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs, a female form made of leather, glass, linoleum, and an electric motor. Duchamp prepared a "Manual of Instructions" in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating how to assemble and disassemble the piece. | ||
- | One side aspect of ''Étant donnés'' are the parallels with the Black Dahlia murder. By far the most striking similarity involves the two bodies. In a photograph of [[Elizabeth Short]]’s body at the crime scene, she lies in thick, tall grass not unlike the twigs that surround the body in ''Étant donnés''; her legs spread wide displaying her sex… | + | One side aspect of ''Étant donnés'' are the parallels with the [[Black Dahlia]] murder. By far the most striking similarity involves the two bodies. In a photograph of [[Elizabeth Short]]’s body at the crime scene, she lies in thick, tall grass not unlike the twigs that surround the body in ''Étant donnés''; her legs spread wide displaying her sex… |
It wasn't until 1969 that the [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]] revealed the tableau to the public. | It wasn't until 1969 that the [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]] revealed the tableau to the public. |
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Etant donnés (Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas, French: Etant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gaz d'éclairage.) is Marcel Duchamp's last major art work which surprised the art world that believed he'd given up art for chess 25 years earlier. It is a tableau, visible only through a peep hole in a wooden door, of a nude woman lying on her back with her face hidden and legs spread holding a gas lamp in the air in one hand against a landscape backdrop.
Duchamp worked secretly on the piece from 1946 to 1966 in his Greenwich Village studio while even his closest friends thought he had abandoned art.
It is made of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs, a female form made of leather, glass, linoleum, and an electric motor. Duchamp prepared a "Manual of Instructions" in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating how to assemble and disassemble the piece.
One side aspect of Étant donnés are the parallels with the Black Dahlia murder. By far the most striking similarity involves the two bodies. In a photograph of Elizabeth Short’s body at the crime scene, she lies in thick, tall grass not unlike the twigs that surround the body in Étant donnés; her legs spread wide displaying her sex…
It wasn't until 1969 that the Philadelphia Museum of Art revealed the tableau to the public.
Notes and references
- Tomkins, Calvin: Duchamp: A Biography, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0-8050-5789-7
- Hulten, Pontus (editor): Marcel Duchamp: Work and Life, The MIT Press, 1993. ISBN 0-262-08225-X
External links
- Outside view of Etant donnés at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
- Inside view of Etant donnés