ABSTRACT
In his monumental re-creation of Marcel Duchamp’s installation, Etant donnes or Given, conceptual artist Serkan Ozkaya presents a powerful enactment of Duchampian accelerationism. Two significant points about Etant donnes should be remembered. First, Duchamp made the work over an approximately 20-year span, much of it in a secret studio, only sharing knowledge of the work with very select people. Second, the actual art object was put on display posthumously, being disassembled and reassembled with the help of a Manual of Instruction left by the artist for this exact purpose. The internal lighting is carefully controlled in the general manner outlined by Duchamp in his Manual of Instruction. Duchampian history is literally remade with new materials and modes of operation. Testing the light from Duchamp’s installation, Haralambidou holds up a sheet of paper at a length away from the eyeholes.
