Public 56 Fall 2017 Attendant A To Z

Editors: Serkan Ozkaya and Robert Fitterman

For twenty years, Marcel Duchamp secretly worked on his final art piece, Étant donnés, in his New York City studio. After he died in 1968, the work was installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of a closed chamber, wherein a naked woman lies on her back on a bed of dead branches. Her legs extend toward the viewer, right leg out straight, left one drawn up and bent. Her head and right arm are hidden by a brick wall. She holds in her left hand an old-fashioned Welsbach gas lamp. The lamp glows faintly against a realistic backdrop of woods and a tiny waterfall that sparkles in the sun. The entire scene is bathed in a brilliant but uneven light, with some areas cast in shadow. The only access to the piece for the viewer comes through two peepholes in the facade of the closed chamber…or maybe not.

In PUBLIC ATTENDANT A to Z, artist Serkan Ozkaya and poet Robert Fitterman curate a collection of works from artists and writers that respond—implicitly and explicitly, artistically and scholarly—to Duchamp’s enigmatic final work. 26 artists and writers were assigned a prompt corresponding to a letter from the alphabet. The result of this unique approach blurs critical writing, poetry, and art to deepen our understanding of Duchamp’s mysterious creation, Étant donnés, or as Fitterman calls it, Attendant A!