Louisville Lollapalooza '96

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Diana--
Your post makes me envious that I missed the hullabaloohaha in L'ville.  Can you clarify 
the Duchamp reference:

<snip>
>A-and don't miss the  great Dead Body of A Woman (Duchamp's Etant Donnes) in 
Rosenberg's article(p. 151). 
<snip>
 I am also compiling aesthetic images of "dumped"
>dead women, a la the Duchamp, and am wondering if anyone remembers the
>Twin Peaks series.  Wasn't the "logo" her dead body?  Would there be
>extant ads or posters showing this?  How do I get one?

What journal are you referring to?
IMO, *Etant Donnes* one of the great 20th c. art works, has to be seen as the sequel to his 
Large Glass--where there's aBride Stripped Bare to be sure, but no dumped dead women.  
You have to  show, not assume, that the obscured female form in *E.D.* is in fact a dead 
dumped woman (for example, why is she holding an operating *oil* lamp in her hand if 
she's dead?  Rigor mortis?)  This piece cannot be understood, or even analyzed, without 
the entire context of walking into that little room in the back of the Duchamp wing of the 
Philadelphia Art Museum, approaching those old huge wooden doors, and voyeuring 
through the peepholes Duchamp has cut to see the scene you're describing.  It's a 
gestamkunstwerk for sure  (I  think the german is horribly misspelled here--what's that 
well-known word for *the total work of art*?).  And here we should mention that the title 
of the piece is not simply *Etant Donnes* but (translated): *Given: (1) the waterfall, (2) the 
illuminating gas*  Can't really discuss the thing unless the whole title is considered.  Also 
some of his prelimninary studies--latex molds and stuff--shed light on the finished work; 
some of these are on display at the Phila. Museum also.

Anyway, Duchamp, after pretending to have given up art for the last 20 yrs or so of his 
life, was apparently working on *E.D.* in secret,  It's permanently installed in Philly, can't 
be moved, and I remember reading somewhere that he constructed it in such a way that it 
couldn't be photographed.  I think technology's thwarted that aim in the past coupla 
decades, though it might be worth it to consider why he tried to set it up that way.

Irrelevantly, I think Duchamp is the greatest artist of the 20th C. Less irrelevantly,his 
complex, challenging and playful art doesn't deserve to be reduced to a grim misleading  
indictment.  I may be missing something in your quick reference, though.

john m