Piranesi, Duchamp and Mustard So what does 'Piranesi, Duchamp and Mustard' mean? The answer is Philadelphia (in Pennsylvania). It was in Philadelphia May 1999 that the director of Quondam - A Virtual Museum of Architecture discovered that Piranesi's Ichnographia Campo Marzio is actually a print executed in two (heretofore unknown) states. This discovery was made in the University of Pennsylvania Fine Arts Library, a building designed by Frank Furness which in the 1960s housed Louis I. Kahn's master architecture class and today houses the Louis I. Kahn Archives. The Piranesi Campo Marzio discovery occurred exactly between those two 'Kahn' spaces. The largest collection of Duchamp art in the world is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I'd like to propose that there is yet another Duchamp artwork (in Philadelphia) that has yet to be cataloged, namely the window that Duchamp asked to be made for daylighting/backlighting of The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even. Furthermore, whenever you're in Philadelphia, make sure you see the back door of the Étant donnés by simply going to the Brancusi galleries adjacent to the Duchamp gallery where you will find a door with "2 KEY" scratched in above the lock. This is the door to what is still the most unopen artwork of the 20th century. Mustard is what Philadelphia's for many decades now traditionally spread on their street vendor bought soft pretzels. |
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