Behind Duchamp's Door Poem by gershon hepner

Spread-eagled, lying on her back,
living aphrodisiac,
not a virgin bride, for such
a gal enjoys a lover’s touch,
on a bunch of twigs and brush,
you can see her burning bush––
for the lady is a tramp! ––
illuminated by a lamp,
through two peepholes, diorama
demonstrating Dada grammar,
esoteric and erotic,
hip, bien sûr, and most hypnotic,
disturbing masterpiece as camp
and as carnal as Duchamp.

Inspired by an article on an exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés at the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Barbara Rose in the WSJ, September 23,2009 (“Behind Duchamp’s Door”) :
Recently 500 British art experts were asked to identify the most influential modern art work. They picked 'Fountain, ' a mass-produced urinal Marcel Duchamp claimed was a work of art. That Duchamp's 'Fountain' ranked ahead of works by Picasso and Matisse reveals how totally the Dada master obliterated the line between art and nonart. Once museums exhibit the urinal as art, the banal bathroom fixture is instantly elevated into a work of art. With context rather than content defining what art is, anything in a museum, gallery, biennale or art fair is validated as an artwork, obviating critical judgment of any kind. Though it was not necessarily his intention, Duchamp opened the door to the junk, jokes, mass-media appropriations, refuse, bodily fluids and dead sharks now filling museums all over the globe. Now his strategies and postures provide the basic curriculum for proliferating graduate art programs that replace artistic innovation with strategic moves to gain instant attention….
The Large Glass, as it is popularly known, consists of two transparent pieces of glass inlaid with metal and split by a frame. The top half is the realm of the untouchable virgin bride, while the bottom is populated by her rejected male suitors. Though some of the forms are depicted in perspective normally used to give the illusion of deep space, the transparency of the field frustrates any attempts to perceive the three-dimensional illusion on which pictorial space is based. Looking through rather than at the mechanistic images fixed in the glass is a jolting experience for the viewer. While it was being installed, the glass was cracked, an element of chance Duchamp accepted. For many years, the Large Glass drew visitors attracted to its enigmatic images and startling presence. In 1969, a year after Duchamp died, it was joined by the even more mysterious 'Étant Donnés, ' now the object of a fascinating and thorough scholarly show. Organized by Michael Taylor, the extensive exhibition documents with hundreds of objects the genesis and production of the multimedia assemblage that occupied Duchamp, in secret, for the last 20 years of his life. 'Étant Donnés' can be viewed only through two peepholes drilled into a weathered wooden door. Planning for its transfer from his studio, Duchamp left precise and detailed instructions for how to put the elements of the peepshow back together. Forcing the viewer to become a conscious voyeur, the work defines the act of vision as a furtive private experience—the very opposite of the collective viewing of today's blockbuster exhibitions. Because the contents of the diorama can be seen only through the two peepholes, the stereoscopic effect is like the 3-D effects popular in today's animated movies. The experience is hallucinatory not only because of this effect, but also because of what Duchamp has chosen to present. In the landscape collaged together from photographs, there is a gleaming, churning little motorized waterfall, which we perceive to be in the far distance because of its scale. Closer to us is a nude woman lying on her back spread-eagled on a bunch of twigs and brush, her exposed genitals spotlighted by the lamp she holds up. The raised arm calls to mind the torch of the Statue of Liberty, reminding us that Duchamp became an American citizen in 1954.

9/23/09