Marcel DuChamp: étant Donnés

Aug. 15-Nov. 29, free with museum admission of $16, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org.

by A.D. Amorosi

visual art

Marcel Duchamp had moved on to the big chess board in the sky when the conceptual Dadaist godfather's Étant Donnés: 1. La Chute D'Eau, 2. Le Gaz D'Éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas) was presented to the world. But "presented" is the wrong word. It was discovered in his Greenwich Village studio after his death in October 1968 and given to Philly's Art Museum, in accordance with the artist's wishes, as a permanent installation in July 1969. No matter how mysterious its circumstances, what could the big deal be? Defenders of Duchamp's work will tell you: Étant Donnés is modern art's most dangerously provocative work — a peephole carved into a door providing an entrée into a wooded area ripe with questionable sexuality and blue-sky sweetness (pictured). Forty years later, this is the first exhibition to examine the genesis and construction of Duchamp's dark masterpiece.

Aug. 15-Nov. 29, free with museum admission of $16, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org.