Etant Donnés
clipped from: www.nytimes.com
Landscape of Eros, Through the Peephole
Duchamp’s great monument to eros, though, is the tableau called “Étant Donnés: 1. La Chute d’Eau, 2. Le Gaz d’Éclairage†(“Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gasâ€). Created in almost complete secrecy between 1946 and 1966, it was his final work, and also his weirdest and most mysterious. And it is the subject of a potent exhibition at the museum called “Marcel Duchamp: Étant Donnés†which, among other things, finesses the lingering myth that Duchamp ended up abandoning art for a life of chess and cogitation.