Los Ladrillos de Étant donnés

a black and white photo of a rustic wooden door set into a flat brick arch on a rough stucco wall, the exterior view, the only one permitted, of marcel duchamp's etant donnes at the philadelphia museum of art — Marcel Duchamp Exterior of Étant donnés, 1946-66, as installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Mixed-media assemblage, published by Michael R. Taylor via

I realize that he spent twenty years working on Étant donnés, so why does it still surprise me that Marcel Duchamp sourced the door AND the bricks for the arch from BF Spain?

a grainy black and white snapshot of a small white woman in a black summer dress posed next to a large rustic wood door in a larger brick arch doorway and wall, in a rural village in spain, from the archive of marcel duchamp and his wife teeny's visit in the early 1960s, now at the philadelphia museum of art — Marcel Duchamp, snapshot of exterior door of *Étant donnés* in its original setting, with Teeny Duchamp, La Bisbal, early 1960s, collection The Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives, published by Michael Taylor, via

The door came from a town called La Bisbal, where Marcel and Teeny went doorscouting in the early 1960s, I guess? It was only in the summer of 1968, though, that Duchamp selected 150 bricks for the doorway arch, to be shipped to the US by a contractor in Cadaqués, his regular vacation spot. [Presumably, Duchamp was trying to match the crumbled brick wall already included in the work, which frames the nude mannequin and landscape. presumably brought back from Spain at some earlier date.

a black and white photo of a rustic wood door from spain, with a row of three square brick-patterned vinyl tiles above it, right up against an absolutely generic modern office building door and doorway, a december 1968 documentary photo by denise brown hare of marcel duchamp's last artwork etant donnes, before it was moved to the philadelphia museum of art — Denise Browne Hare, 11th St installation of Étant donnés, with vinyl brick tiles, December 1968, from a documentation portfolio published for the first time in 2009 by Michael Taylor via

Until the bricks arrived, Duchamp put up a row of brick-shaped vinyl tiles as placeholders in the 11th St studio where the Étant donnés diorama was constructed (or reconstructed, because he’d already had to move it once).

Duchamp, of course, never took delivery of the bricks. He died in October 1968, and in anticipation of the disassembly and move of Étant donnés, Teeny had it photographed by Denise Browne Hare in December.

The bricks, meanwhile, went on their own convoluted journey, and the shipping and customs delays getting them caused weeks of drama for the Philadelphia Museum, which was rushing to secretly install the work before word got out—and before Teeny left to Spain for the summer.

It’s so chill now, but the entire saga of Étant donnés is buck wild, from the secrecy of its creation; the logistics of its acquisition and installation; the sheer institutional freakout over its existence, voyeur/creeper and nudity factors; and the paranoia and draconian constraints over its documentation and reproduction.

They all culminate in the tragicomedy of, of all people, Arturo Schwarz, Duchamp’s dealer and the editor of his catalogue raisonné, WHICH WAS READY TO GO, only finding out about the existence of Étant donnés as it was being dismantled in NYC and shipped to Philadelphia, and literally writing the CR text on it at the museum as soon as it opened to the public. He then proceeded to politely rage for permission to photograph the work for the second edition of the CR, which the museum was absolutely too terrified to do. Schwarz was forced to reproduce bootleg snapshots taken through the work’s peephole.

The sweet irony is that all this extraordinary detail is laid out in full in Michael R. Taylor’s 2009 book, Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés. The Genesis, Construction, Installation, and Legacy of a Secret Masterwork, published on the work’s 40th anniversary by the Philadelphia Museum. I have a copy somewhere, but it’s so much easier to read on this heroic Slovenian artist’s website [shruggie emoji].