The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even is an installation that took Marcel Duchamp eight years to complete. Eight?! The Sistine Chapel was done in just four, but whatever. I still like all the crazy, crazy things that are happening here.
The installation depicts the Amorous Pursuit of males and females. Said Pursuit starts with the Bride (top half of the pane), singing a song to the men below. This exchange produces vapors that are caught within the men’s balloon-like molds called Malic Molds (rhymes with phallic, of course it does). These gases then become erotic impulse of Man. There’s a beautiful blueprint of the entire installation here that includes the Milky Way, the Handler of Gravity, and the entire path the gases follow from start to finish. Ah, fate and destiny, how we need you so.
What I’m realizing looking at Duchamp’s work is, this is actually the intimate questionnaire the eHarmony doctor touts on daytime TV commercials. Found you out, Dr. Neil Warren!
It was broken during transport in 1926 (whoops), but carefully repaired. It’s on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.