Man Ray: La Mode au Congo (Ady Fidelin), 1937 (Source, p. 44)
Man Ray: Femme tenant l’Objet désagréable, 1937
The ‘disagreable object’ is a sculpture by Giacometti…
Duchamp’s great monument to eros, the tableau called:
“Étant Donnés: 1. La Chute d’Eau, 2. Le Gaz d’Éclairage” (“Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas”)
It was conceived as a kind of an homage to two specific women in Duchamp’s life. This photo of the work in progress at his 14th Street studio in New York in 1965 was taken by Duchamp.
Photo: Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Estate of Marcel Duchamp
What one sees when peeping through the doors of Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnés
Marcel Duchamp’s final work of art, executed in secret over twenty years from 1946 - 66:
“Étant Donnés: 1. La Chute d’Eau, 2. Le Gaz d’Éclairage” (“Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas”).
The installation consists of a wooden door with peepholes through which one can see a strangely erotic diorama…
“Jasper Johns, a longtime Duchampian, once referred to “Étant Donnés” as “the strangest work of art in any museum.” And strange it is. It occupies a closed-off room in a dead-end area at the back of the main Duchamp gallery. The room can’t be entered. The entrance is blocked by a pair of locked antique wooden doors, solid except for two tiny side-by-side peepholes in their center. When you look through the holes — only one person at a time can do so, making for a very self-conscious viewing experience — you see a shattered brick wall just beyond the door, and in the distance a painted landscape of hills, autumn-tinged trees and what appears to be an actively flowing waterfall. In the foreground, just past the shattered wall, the nude body of a woman reclines on a nest of dried branches, her legs spread wide to reveal oddly malformed genitals. Her face is obscured by her blond hair. Her lower legs and right arm are out of the range of vision. Her left arm is raised at the elbow, and in her hand she holds a small, glowing electric lamp. The sight, at once bucolic and freakish, provoked an uproar when the piece had its public debut 40 years ago. What are we looking at? The aftermath of rape, mutilation and attempted murder? A profane update of Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St. Teresa”? (Duchamp sometimes referred to the figure as “Our Lady of Desires.”)” (Source - New York Times)
James N. Rosenberg (Nov. 20, 1874 - 1970): March Parade of Colonel John B. Glenn (New York City, March 1, 1962), 1962 - oil pastel on fiberboard (Smithsonian)
Don DeLillo hasn’t exactly gotten the Nobel Laureateship yet, but he is still going strong at 73 (b. Nov. 20, 1936) - although Falling Man was a disappointment to me. We’ll see if next year’s Point Omega will be more convincing…
In 1991 Nadine Gordimer became the 7th female Nobel Literature Laureate - not exactly a sterling record in gender equality for the Swedish Academy… Gordimer (b. Nov. 20, 1923) was certainly a worthy recipent of the Prize, having through ”her magnificent epic writing … been of very great benefit to humanity,” as the Committee phrased it in their motivation for the award.
Nobel Laureates too:
Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author of fables and tales, historical epics, and religious novels, was born Nov. 20, 1858 (d. 1940). She received the Prize in 1909 “in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings” - thus becoming the first ever female Literature Laureate.
See also last year’s OF post where we discussed her closeted lesbianism, etc.
Photo from the Nobel site of Lagerlöf at her desk at her estate, Mårbacka (Source - more images)
Got literary posts for you now:
Yevgenia Ginzburg (Nov. 20, 1896 - 1977) was a Russian author who served a 18-year sentence in the Gulag, for so-called Trotskyite sympathies. She has written a harrowing memoir of her experiences, entitled Journey into the Whirlwind…
Quote:
“What was I to do? Of course—there was always poetry! I recited Pushkin, Blok, Nekrasov and Tyutchev.
A flagstone is my only cushion,
But Pushkin, sitting in one corner,
Sings me a song…
And, unseen by any guard,
Another priceless friend
Comes into my cell—
His name is Alexander Blok.
Poetry, at least, they could not take away from me! They had taken my dress, my shoes and stockings, and my comb, they had left me half naked and freezing, but this it was not in their power to take away, it was and remained mine. And I should survive even this dungeon.” (Source)
Photo of Ginzburg and her husband Pavel Aksenov, 1930
Duane Allman was a sensational master of the slide guitar - listen to Derek and the Dominos playing Clapton’s chestnut Leyla, and everything you hear on that recording that is haunting and beautiful actually comes out of Duane’s guitar…
Duane Allman was born Nov. 20, 1946 and died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, not quite 25 years old.
Quote: “There ain’t no revolution, only evolution, but every time I’m in Georgia I ‘eat a peach’ for peace.”
Watch Duane’s gentle acoustic masterpiece: Little Martha
Maya Plisetskaya (b. Nov. 20, 1925) is a retired Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th Century. Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as Galina Ulanova, and took over from her as principal of the Bolshoi in 1960. She created roles for many other choreographers throughout the world, for instance Maurice Bejart’s superb Bolero.
Photo of Plisetskaya, 1962 - Stan Wayman, LIFE
November 20th was in fact Robert F. Kennedy’s birthday. Born in 1925, the young politician was assassinated during his bid for the 1968 presidency…
Photo from happier times:
Future Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy w. his son Bobby Jr. outside his Hickory Hill home, Mcclean, VA, US - April 1957
Photographer: Paul Schutzer, LIFE
In October and November of 1962 the world came close a sordid ending in a nuclear holocaust when the Cold War heated up in connection with the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis.
President Kennedy and his brother Robert, the Attorney General, drove a hard bargain against the Russians, quarantining the island of Cuba with a naval blockade and eventually managed to successfully negotiate a deal which allowed both sides to step down from the threat of full war (US missiles were removed from Turkey).
Finally on Nov. 20, 1962, after Russian cargo ships had removed the nuclear war-heads from the island of Cuba and were escorted into international waters by US warships, the quarantine was officially lifted.
Photo by Carl Mydans, LIFE Mag.:
American destroyer USS Vesole (DD-878) escorting the Russian freighter Polzunov into international waters; the freighter is loaded w. nuclear missiles and related equipment bound for the Soviet Union after being removed from Cuban soil, bringing an end to the so called Cuban Missile Crisis. - Original caption
More endings:
On Nov. 20, 1975, the Spanish Fascist dictator Generalissimo Franco finally croaked after hanging onto power for 36 years, following the brutal Spanish Civil War.
As is always the case with imbecilic schmucks like him, his true character comes out in photos such as the one above:
General Francisco Franco, posing with his dead ducks; Spain 1949
Photographer: Dmitri Kessel
