PISS ARTISTS
CALLE
DEMUTH
HAMMONS
HASEGAWA
MANNEKEN PIS
QUINN
SERRANO
SMITH
WARHOL
URINAL ARTISTS
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Fountain
1964 (replica of 1917 original) 63 x 46 x 36 cm Milano, Galeria Schwarz |
In February of 1917, The Society of Independent Artists in New York City, held an open exhibition. Duchamp, being a member of the group entered a urinal mounted on its side, titling the piece, Fountain. Duchamp chose not to sign the piece with his real name. Instead he signed the piece "R. Mutt" or Richard Mutt, a factious character, said maybe to have been a cartoon strip of the time. Fountain was rejected from the "open exhibition" without anyone knowing that it was the work of Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp even commented on the piece stating, "Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance, he CHOSE it." Being received as an offensive joke at the exhibit, Duchamp took the piece back to the studio of Alfred Stieglitz, where it would be photographed. Duchamp later stated in an interview that, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges." The original then disappeared as did almost all of the "original readymades" of Duchamp.
Fountain has been interpreted and studied by art historians, and the theories to explain the piece have ranged from mathematical all the way to sexual. Art historian Kermit Champa described Fountain as, "the perfect Freudian symbol, flagrantly obvious and utterly untranslatable and as a result, perversely pure. Phallic? Vaginal? It was the man made female object for exclusive male functions. Yet who could characterize it precisely."
Fountain
was not appreciated when first shown in 1917. George Bellows, a society
board member, stood beside Fountain as if he were about to relieve himself.
Realizing his awkward position, Bellows became very angered, and proceeded
to turn to Walter Arensberg, fellow society member, and state, "Do
you mean that if an artist put horse manure on a canvas and sent it to
the exhibition, we would have to accept it." Arensberg, who was a
close friend of Duchamp, and the man who actually purchased the urinal
with Duchamp, responded to Bellows saying, "I am afraid we would."
Since this poor reception in New York in 1917, Fountain has become one
of the most replicated sculptures of 20th century art. More than 600 replicas
of the piece were done before the death of Duchamp in 1968. Duchamp states
that, "another aspect of the "readymade" is its lack of
uniqueness . . . the replica of a "readymade" delivering the
same message; in fact nearly everyone of the "readymades" existing
today is not an original in the conventional sense." This statement
was made late in Duchamp's life, showing that he was not upset that his
originals had been lost, in fact it is believed that he disposed of many
of them himself.
Duchamp's original ideas which developed into "readymades", were his things, objects used for private distraction, not public display. They were works of art created not by the hand and skill, but rather by mind and decision of an artist. Late in Duchamp's life he states that, "you can make people swallow anything; that's what happened with Fountain". His conceptual approach to art which "defines art primarily as a mental act rather then a visual one," an approach which has come to dominate Western art of the 20th century.