How Marcel Duchamp Signed a Urinal in 1917 & Redefined Artwork

Mar­cel Duchamp did­n’t signal his title on a uri­nal for lack of abil­i­ty to cre­ate “actual” artwork. In reality, as defined by gal­lerist-Youtu­ber James Payne in the brand new Nice Artwork Defined video above, Ducham­p’s grand­fa­ther was an artist, as have been three of his sib­lings; he him­self attained impres­sive tech­ni­cal professional­fi­cien­cy in paint­ing by his teen years. In 1912, when he was in his mid-twen­ties, he might tran­scend con­ven­tion thor­ough­ly sufficient to bewil­der and even enrage the pub­lic by paint­ing Nude Descend­ing a Stair­case, which additionally drew crit­i­cisms from his fel­low Cubists for being “too Futur­ist.” From then on, his inde­pen­dent (and never total­ly un-mis­chie­vous) streak grew to become his total lifestyle and artwork.

That very same yr, Duchamp, Con­stan­tin Brân­cuși, and Fer­di­nand Léger went to the Paris Avi­a­tion Salon. Behold­ing a professional­peller, Duchamp declared paint­ing “washed up”; what artist might out­do the appar­ent per­fec­tion of the shape earlier than him? Get­ting a job as a librar­i­an, he indulged in a stretch of learn­ing about math­e­mat­ics and physics.

This obtained him assume­ing of the pow­er of probability, one of many forces that moved him to place a bicy­cle wheel in his stu­dio and spin it round when­ev­er the spir­it moved him. This he would lat­er con­sid­er his first “prepared­made” piece, delib­er­ate­ly cho­sen for being “a func­tion­al, each­day merchandise with a complete absence of excellent or unhealthy style” that “defied the notion that artwork have to be beau­ti­ful.”

The well-known uri­nal, enti­tled Foun­tain, would come lat­er, in 1917, after he had relo­cat­ed from Paris to New York. Tech­ni­cal­ly, he did­n’t signal his title on it in any respect, however quite “R. MUTT,” for Richard Mutt, a reputation par­tial­ly “impressed by the com­ic strip Mutt and Jeff, which Duchamp cherished. And Richard is French slang for a wealthy showoff, or a mon­ey­baggage.” Sub­mit­ted by a “feminine good friend” and hid­den behind a cur­tain on the present at which it made its debut, the orig­i­nal signed uri­nal would nev­er be seen once more. However it professional­voked a suf­fi­cient­ly endur­ing curios­i­ty that, close to­ly half a cen­tu­ry lat­er, a mar­ket had emerged for care­ful­ly craft­ed sculp­tur­al repli­cas for Foun­tain and the oth­er prepared­mades. The irony might arduous­ly have been misplaced on any­one with a humorousness — or a will­ing­ness to ques­tion the character of artwork itself — like Ducham­p’s.

Relat­ed con­tent:

What Made Mar­cel Duchamp’s Well-known Uri­nal Artwork–and an Inven­tive Prank

The Mar­cel Duchamp Analysis Por­tal Opens, Mak­ing Avail­ready 18,000 Doc­u­ments and 50,000 Photographs Relat­ed to the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Artist

Hear the Rad­i­cal Musi­cal Com­po­si­tions of Mar­cel Duchamp (1912–1915)

Hear Mar­cel Duchamp Learn “The Cre­ative Act,” A Quick Lec­ture on What Makes Nice Artwork, Nice

When Bri­an Eno & Oth­er Artists Peed in Mar­cel Duchamp’s Well-known Uri­nal

The Icon­ic Uri­nal & Work of Artwork, “Foun­tain,” Wasn’t Cre­at­ed by Mar­cel Duchamp However by the Pio­neer­ing Dada Artist Elsa von Frey­tag-Lor­ing­hoven

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­e book.