One hundred years ago this week, a urinal was transformed into the most influential artwork of the 20th century.
“Fountain†didn’t instantly change the world when Marcel Duchamp took the porcelain urinal, laid it on its back, signed it “R. Mutt†and entered it into the Society of Independent Artists 1917 exhibition in New York.
But by the 1960s, Duchamp’s groundbreaking recontextualizing of the utilitarian object had been recognized as the precursor of much contemporary art -- you wouldn’t have minimalism, conceptualism or performance art without Duchamp and “Fountain.â€
And, like it or not, traditional art -- painting, sculpture, ceramics, etc. -- now cannot help being viewed, at least to some measure, in Duchampian fashion.
Why?
Because “Fountain†was the pivotal piece that moved art from the “retinal,†as Duchamp called the visual appreciation of a physical object, to the cerebral.
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That is that art is about the idea as much or more than the object, an intellectual process that can turn everyday objects like the urinal or Duchamp’s earlier “readymades†-- a bottle rack, a rake, a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool -- into art.
That happens, in part, because the artist says "this is art" and because of the context in the work, which no longer has to be a physical object, is presented.
“Rather than ask why, his art asks how,†Duchamp scholar Paul B. Franklin told England’s The Telegraph a few years ago. “It’s about intellectual process. He described his art as a game between I and me -- subject and object, the initiator and the receiver.â€
And, for Duchamp, the role of the receiver is as important as that of the creator of the work being received.
“The creative act is not performed by the artist alone,†Duchamp once said. “The spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.â€
That too changes the nature of the way in which art is viewed, at least on the intellectual level where notions of connoisseurship are less relevant than sussing out meaning and intent.
And it’s also worth noting that everything isn’t to be taken 100 percent seriously -- Duchamp was a provocateur with a sense of humor, deflating the pomposity of “art†that he was freeing from its traditional confines.
By the way, the designation of “Fountain†as the most important work of the 20th century isn’t mine.
That said, I’d wholeheartedly agree with the ranking that came from the BBC, which, in 2004, polled 500 art experts asking them to name the “most influential modern art work†of all time. Given that modern art developed in the late 19th century, that poll covered just over a century of work.
“Marilyn Diptych,†a 1962 silkscreen painting by Andy Warhol, much of whose work is easily related to Duchamp, finished third. “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,†Pablo Picasso’s groundbreaking proto-cubist painting from 1907, finished second.
But the most famous artist of the 20th century has to take a backseat when it comes to influence. “Fountain,†to steal Willem deKooning’s phrase describing Jackson Pollock’s painting, changed everything. And it continues to do so, a century after it was rejected from the art show that had said it would take anything submitted by an artist.
A final note, if you happen to see “Fountain,†which in truth isn’t much to look at, you’re not looking at the original. The first “Fountain†was photographed by Alfred Steiglitz shortly after it was rejected and then lost -- mostly likely discarded -- to history.
In the 1960s, when his work and philosophy was beginning to permeate the art world, Duchamp commissioned a suite of replicas. So, ironically -- and the prankster Duchamp unquestionably planned this -- the “Fountain†you’ll see in a museum isn’t a factory-made industrial object but a meticulously hand-crafted art work.
But they look the same -- opening up another can of “is this art?†worms.
Or you might see a tiny version of “Fountain†in “Boite en Valise,†(box in a suitcase), a set of miniature reproductions of Duchamp’s works -- save his installation masterpiece “Etant donne†or a print of an outline of “Fountain†-- examples of both are in the Sheldon Museum of Art collection.
Not bad for a urinal that, had Duchamp not purchased it a few days before the exhibition, would have served a far different function than forever changing art.