Elizabeth Manchester is a London-based artist researching on Duchamp’s work Etant Donnés. Here a summary of Mancherster's research:
"In 1946 Marcel Duchamp began casting the body of his lover, the Brazilian sculptress and notorious femme fatale Maria Martins, for the creation of his enigmatic last work Étant donnés (1946-66). Focusing on the spread legs of a headless female body made of stretched and painted parchment, Étant donnés presents a hairless and labia-less vagina that is strangely misshapen and deformed. My practice-led research examines this work and its satellite erotic objects, as part of a wider investigation into notions of deformity and abjection associated with representations of the vagina in twentieth century art."
About Duchamp's work Étant donnés:
The full title of the piece (in English) is: Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas.
It consists of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs gathered by Duchamp on his walks in the park, leather stretched over a metal armature of a female form, glass, linoleum, an electric motor, etc.
Duchamp prepared a Manual of Instructions which explains and illustrates the process of assembling/disassembling the piece.
The viewer of the piece first steps onto a mat in front of the door, which activates the lights, motor, etc., and then peers through two "peepholes" to view the construction behind the door.
The voyeur strains, unsuccessfully, to see the "face" of the eerily realistic nude female form which lies supine on a bed of twigs, illuminated gas lamp in hand. In the distance, a sparkling waterfall shimmers, backlit by a flickering light, part of a realistically rendered landscape painting on glass.
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