Marcel Duchamp's Étant donnés: The revival of a masterpiece

PHILADELPHIA — 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.

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 "Etant donnes," 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 Etant donnes in such high esteem that, on the 40th anniversary of its installation, it has mounted a show -- simply titled "Marcel Duchamp: Etant donnes" -- that describes in great detail how Duchamp conceived and constructed the work. The show, which closes Nov. 29 and goes nowhere else (though "Etant donnes" 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.

On top of this, the 447-page catalog includes 35 letters that Duchamp wrote to his lover, the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her body served as the model for the nude that is a central piece of "Etant donnes." The letters, obtained by the museum a year ago, have not been published before.

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'Strangest work of art'

The displays enhance the experience of seeing "Etant donnes" itself. The installation, according to the painter Jasper Johns, is "the strangest work of art any museum has ever had in it."

A visitor walks into a darkened room and stands before an antique Spanish door arched by thin red bricks that come from Cadaques, Duchamp's summer vacation site in Spain near the home of Salvador Dali. There are two almost imperceptible peepholes in the door. Through the door, the visitor sees a brick wall smashed open enough to allow a view of almost all of what lies behind.