how did marcel duchamp's fountain change the course of art?

by Vicky Jacobs III 4 min read

Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, said: “One hundred years ago, Duchamp’s Fountain turned the art world upside down. As artists and critics debated whether this was art or a hoax, the artist’s designation of the porcelain urinal as a readymade changed the course of modern art.

Full Answer

What makes Duchamp’s The fountain a work of Art?

Dec 17, 2018 · Duchamp championed the use of “readymade objects” for many years. He claimed that existing objects taken from real life can be re-contextualized to function as a work of art. It was that idea, art primarily as a concept rather than an object, is what made the Fountain one of the most captivating and challenging art pieces.

How did Marcel Duchamp change art history?

May 09, 2017 · The story is legend. Duchamp, wanting to submit an artwork to the “unjuried” Society of Independent Artists’ salon in New York—which claimed that they would accept any work of art, so long as the artist paid the application fee—presented an upside-down urinal signed and dated with the appellation “R. Mutt, 1917,” and titled Fountain.

Did Marcel Duchamp sign an upside-down urinal as a fountain?

Mar 28, 2017 · Shortly after its first and only exhibit, the Fountain just happened to vanish. This particular piece was one of the more remembered pieces of these ready-mades that Duchamp produced. Other artists from 1850, which was the beginning of the Avant Garde Movement, to approximately 1970, also had well known pieces of art that was displayed to the ...

What was Duchamp’s intention in selling the piece at the exhibition?

By detaching art from aesthetics, Duchamp set it spinning on a different course from the one it had followed since the Renaissance – and thereby ensured that almost all significant art made in the US and continental Europe after his death in 1968 would, at …

Why was Marcel Duchamp's Fountain a controversial piece of art?

The age of outrage After all, Duchamp did not forge the sculpture from clay with his own hands. Its significance instead lies in the object's ability surreptitiously to skirt the scrutiny and prejudices of the eye and to engage the mind instead in a match of philosophical wits.Apr 11, 2017

How has Duchamp's Fountain influenced avant garde contemporary art?

The most obvious influence of Duchamp's Fountain has been on the development of conceptual art, one in which ideas are more valued than the aesthetic quality of the works, art that often exposes items from everyday life and re-questions their meaning, as well as the meaning of the art as a medium itself.Mar 18, 2017

Why is Marcel Duchamp's work so important in art history?

His irreverence for conventional aesthetic standards led him to devise his famous ready-mades and heralded an artistic revolution. Duchamp was friendly with the Dadaists, and in the 1930s he helped to organize Surrealist exhibitions. He became a U.S. citizen in 1955.

How did Marcel Duchamp influence conceptual art?

Duchamp claimed to have chosen everyday objects “based on a reaction of visual indifference, with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste….”2 In doing so, Duchamp paved the way for Conceptual art—work that was “in the service of the mind,”3 as opposed to a purely “retinal” art, intended only to please the ...

What is Duchamp's Fountain and why is it significant?

Summary. Fountain is one of Duchamp's most famous works and is widely seen as an icon of twentieth-century art. The original, which is lost, consisted of a standard urinal, usually presented on its back for exhibition purposes rather than upright, and was signed and dated 'R.

What did Marcel Duchamp's Fountain do quizlet?

Duchamp's Fountain has become one of his most famous works. In his words, this sculpture is an example of ready-made art. Objects of ordinary manufacture were used to make these. Then his art was presented as a piece of art.Nov 17, 2021

What was the nature of Duchamp's work to traditional definitions of art?

As to Duchamp's contribution to traditional definitions of art, he turned traditional art on its head, so to speak. By shocking and disturbing his viewers, he intended to shock and disturb them. Among his best known works, most of it is what he called "ready-made".Oct 27, 2021

What art form did Marcel Duchamp create?

PaintingSculptureMarcel Duchamp/Forms

What is Marcel Duchamp major accomplishments?

Marcel DuchampNationalityFrenchKnown forPainting, sculpture, filmNotable workNude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) Fountain (1917) The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923) LHOOQ (1919) Étant donnés (1946–1966)MovementCubism, Dada, conceptual art5 more rows

Who influenced conceptual art?

Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp is often known to be the forefather of Conceptual Art. He is best known for his readymade works, like Fountain, the famous urinal that he designated as art in 1917 and that is seen as the first conceptual artwork in art history.

Who did Marcel Duchamp inspire?

The Barbican's current blockbuster show, 'The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns', focuses on Marcel Duchamp's cultural legacy by tracing his relationship to four great modern masters; composer John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham, and visual artists Robert Rauschenberg ...Apr 8, 2013

Was Marcel Duchamp a conceptual artist?

He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under a new title and point of view – [he] created a new thought for that object.” This act and statement by Duchamp would forever change the possibilities of art, and paved the way for conceptual art.

Who was the first person to photograph Marcel Duchamp's fountain?

Photographed by Alfred Stieglitz, urinated on by Brian Eno, sometimes cited as the work of a German baroness, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain was arguably the first ever piece of conceptual art and harbours a fascinating backstory

Why is the Fountain so famous?

Of all Duchamp's readymades, Fountain is the best known perhaps because its symbolic meaning takes the conceptual challenge posed by the readymade to its most visceral extreme. ...

Who invented the bicycle wheel?

Marcel Duchamp and Bicycle Wheel (1913) With Fountain Duchamp pretty much invented conceptual art and thus cut the accepted link between an artist’s labour and the supposed ‘merit’ of the work. It has been mooted that in putting the urinal forward as a work of art Duchamp, who came from a small town near Rouen, ...

What was Fountain originally submitted for?

The In-depth Artist of the What was Fountain originally submitted for and what happened to it? The 1917 urinal aka Fountain was originally put on display during a show promoting Avant grade art . Avant grade means advance guard which is a military term. Avant garde was art movement which originated in France in 1850 in order to open the eyes and more so, make fun of or shock the average or elite viewer. To put an everyday, ordinary item on display and call it art.

Where did the Dada movement originate?

Dada movement originated in Zurich in 1916-1923 was also called (The Non Movement By Shelley Esaak). A group of artists and writers, during World War 1 went against the war and the society and cultures of the viewer that condoned the war or caused its production .

Who painted the Mona Lisa?

A good example of this is the portrait painting of the infamous Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Duchamp had doodled a mustache and goatee on the womans face. Of course this was humorous. to many and insulting to others, more so to the elite, high society followers of the latter.

Who is Belle da Costa Greene?

I was especially interested on his self portrait of himself as an infamous, black, socialite, librarian, Belle da Costa Greene. Whose parents had. Resided in the nations capital until they divorced . Her, her mother and siblings were able to play off that they were of a white heritage with their light skin.

Where was Marcel Duchamp's studio?

“Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal” Duchamp’s studio at 33 West 67th Street, New York, 1917-18, Henri-Pierre Roché.

Who is the curator of modern art?

Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, said: “Duchamp understood quite early the profound challenge that the readymade posed to widely held ideas about the significance of originals and copies in art. As time went on, he became more interested in making replicas.

How to contact the Philadelphia Museum of Art?

For additional information, contact the Communications Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art phone at 215-684-7860, by fax at 215-235-0050, or by e-mail at [email protected]. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. For general information, call (215) 763-8100.

Who is John Vick?

John Vick, Collections Project Manager. Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Philadelphia Museum of Art contains the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Duchamp, from his earliest paintings to his final work, along with the largest archive devoted to the artist.

What did Marcel Duchamp do to change the world?

Few artists can boast of having changed the course of art history in the way that Marcel Duchamp did. By challenging the very notion of what is art , his first readymades sent shock waves across the art world that can still be felt today. Duchamp's ongoing preoccupation with the mechanisms of desire and human sexuality as well as his fondness for wordplay aligns his work with that of Surrealists, although he steadfastly refused to be affiliated with any specific artistic movement per se. In his insistence that art should be driven by ideas above all, Duchamp is generally considered to be the father of Conceptual art. His refusal to follow a conventional artistic path, matched only by a horror of repetition which accounts for the relatively small number of works Duchamp produced in the span of his short career, ultimately led to his withdrawal from the art world. In later years, Duchamp famously spent his time playing chess, even as he labored away in secret at his last enigmatic masterpiece, which was only unveiled after his death.

What inspired Duchamp to make the large glass?

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, or The Large Glass was partly inspired by author Raymond Roussel's use of homophones, words that sound alike but have different meanings . Duchamp frequently resorted to puns and double-meanings in his work.With The Large Glass, he sought to make an artwork that could be both visually experienced and "read" as a text. After attending a performance of Roussel's Impressions d'Afrique, Duchamp envisioned a sculptural assemblage as a stage of sorts. Preliminary studies for this stage, which would have been over nine feet tall, included depictions of an abstracted "bride" being attacked by machine-like figures in chaotic motion. The constructed gadgetry featured between the two glass panels was also likely inspired by Duchamp's study of mathematician Henri Poincare's physics theorems.

How many threads did Duchamp drop?

To make this piece, which reads like a visual demonstration of the workings of chance, Duchamp dropped three threads, each exactly one meter long, from a height of one meter. He then carefully recorded the random outline of the fallen thread on canvas, glass and wood. Chance also dictated his choice of title: Duchamp apparently hit upon stoppages, French for the "invisible mending" of a garment, after walking past a shop sign advertising sewing supplies.

What is readymade art?

Coined by Duchamp, the term "readymade" came to designate mass-produced everyday objects taken out of their usual context and promoted to the status of artworks by the mere choice of the artist. A performative act as much as a stylistic category, the readymade had far-reaching implications for what can legitimately be considered an object of art.#N#Duchamp rejected purely visual or what he dubbed "retinal pleasure," deeming it to be facile, in favor of more intellectual, concept-driven approaches to art-making and, for that matter, viewing. He remained committed, however, to the study of perspective and optics which underpins his experiments with kinetic devices, reflecting an ongoing concern with the representation of motion and machines common to Futurist and Surrealist artists at the time.#N#A taste for jokes, tongue-in-cheek wit and subversive humor, rife with sexual innuendoes, characterizes Duchamp's work and makes for much of its enjoyment. He fashioned puns out of everyday expressions which he conveyed through visual means. The linguistic dimension of his work in particular paved the way for Conceptual art.

What is the nude ascending a staircase?

Nude Descending A Staircase initially met with an unfavorable response at the Salon des Indépendants, dominated by the Cubist avant-garde who objected to what they deemed as its Futurist leanings, but enjoyed a succes de scandale at the 1913 Armory Show in New York. More than a study of the body's movement through space, the work is an early figurative exercise in painting cinematically, akin to Eadweard Muybridge's sequences of photographs that anticipated motion pictures. This painting together with the contemporaneous Passage from Virgin to Bride marks the end of Duchamp's short-lived career as a painter.

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Influence

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Photographed, then subsequently thrown away, by Alfred Stieglitz, urinated on by Brian Eno and sometimes cited as the work of a Bauhaus baroness rather than the man it is most commonly associated with, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain is arguably the first piece of conceptual art ever, certainly the most famous ready made in ar…
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Analysis

  • In the gently flowing curves of Fountain Duchamp biographer Calvin Tomkins claimed one could discern the veiled head of a classic Renaissance Madonna or a seated Buddha or, perhaps more to the point, one of Brâncuși's polished erotic forms. Others have likened the work to an erect penis and testicles or even a modest woman with her head covered.
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Significance

  • With Fountain Duchamp pretty much invented conceptual art and thus cut the accepted link between an artists labour and the supposed merit of the work. It has been mooted that in putting the urinal forward as a work of art Duchamp, who came from a small town near Rouen, close to the battlefields of World War One, was discrediting the power and standing of the virtuoso artist …
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Quotes

  • With Fountain Duchamp, who had arrived in New York from Paris in 1915, revolutionised the creation of art and effectively posed the questions: Who is an artist? And what is art?
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Background

  • Duchamp had begun deliberating on the idea of a readymade a year or two earlier. The first, in 1913, was a bicycle wheel on a stool which he said he simply liked looking at. Despite its equally lowly beginnings, Fountain was an altogether sexier offering sexual attraction and sexual difference being two of Duchamps obsessions.
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Performance

  • Of all Duchamp's readymades, Fountain is the best known perhaps because its symbolic meaning takes the conceptual challenge posed by the readymade to its most visceral extreme. Duchamp, who saw America as the land of the huckster and Fountain as much practical joke as it was a serious attempt to reconfigure the art world, signed the porcelain urinal R.Mutt (a possible refere…
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Trivia

  • However, Duchamp was not known as its creator (though most suspected him to be). Instead, as Alfred Stieglitz wrote A young woman sent a large porcelain urinal on a pedestal to the Independent(s).
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Writing

  • Certainly, Freytag-Loringhoven had created broadly similar, scatological works but nothing that held the thinking expressed in Duchamps piece. Norton meanwhile, was living at the time in an apartment owned by her parents at 110 West 88th Street in New York City, and this address is partially discernible (along with \"Richard Mutt\") on the paper entry ticket attached to the object …
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Controversy

  • But Fountain was rejected by the committee, even though the rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee. After some consternation and a brief discussion it was decided that the six dollar submission should be returned to 'Mr. Mutt' with a letter stating that it had no place in an art exhibition. Duchamp immediately resigned from the society stating that T…
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Criticism

  • Philosopher Stephen Hicks believed that Duchamp, who was quite familiar with the history of European art, was making a profoundly provocative statement with Fountain:
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Exhibitions

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To celebrate the centennial of one of the greatestand most amusingcontroversies in the history of modern art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition on Marcel Duchamps legendary readymade, Fountain. Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal focuses on the spring of 1917, when Duchamp, with th…
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Early history

  • The Society of Independents was founded in late 1916 by a group that included Duchamp. In meetings at the apartment of the collectors Louise and Walter Arensberg and elsewhere, the group planned a large exhibition for the following April. It decided that no jury would control artists participation in the show. Duchamp bought his urinal from the New York showroom of the J. L. …
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Criticism

  • Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, said: Duchamp understood quite early the profound challenge that the readymade posed to widely held ideas about the significance of originals and copies in art. As time went on, he became more interested in making replicas. He overturned ideas of originality, raising questions …
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Collections

  • Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art contains the worlds most comprehensive collection of works by Duchamp, from his earliest paintings to his final work, along with the largest archive devoted to the artist. Among the original readymades are With Hidden Noise, 1916, and 50 cc of Paris Air, 1919. Replicas of readymades that were lost include …
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Mission

  • We are Philadelphias art museum. A landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitorsthrough scholarly study and creative playto discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memo…
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Access

  • For additional information, contact the Communications Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art phone at 215-684-7860, by fax at 215-235-0050, or by e-mail at [email protected]. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. For general information, call (215) 763-8100.
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