Sculpture Codexery

Fountain (Duchamp)

A porcelain urinal that redefined art through choice.

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The work, titled Fountain, was never placed in the show area and the original has since been lost.[1][2] A standard urinal was entered into the Society of Independent Artists' first show in New York during April 1917, using the alias R. Mutt.[1][3] Duchamp authorized the creation of sixteen copies of the work during the 1950s and 1960s, all produced to his satisfaction.[2]

Quick Facts

Attributed to
Marcel Duchamp
Year
1917
Medium
Porcelain urinal (readymade)
Field
Sculpture, readymade

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

Marcel Duchamp had arrived in the United States less than two years prior to creating Fountain and had become involved with Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Beatrice Wood in a proto-Dada cultural movement in New York City.[4] According to one version, Duchamp purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J. L. Mott Iron Works accompanied by artist Joseph Stella and collector Walter Arensberg.[3] Duchamp was a board member of the Society of Independent Artists at the time, but submitted the work under a pseudonym.[5] After debate, the work was hidden from view during the show, and Duchamp resigned from the board.[5][6]

Duchamp began making miniature reproductions of Fountain in 1935 for his Boîte-en-valise, and the first 1:1 reproduction was authorized in 1950.[7] The artist turned the urinal sideways from its normal functional orientation and inscribed it with "R. Mutt 1917".[3] According to Duchamp, "Mutt" derived from Mott Works, a company that made sanitary equipment; he changed the spelling to Mutt referencing the comic strip Mutt and Jeff.[8] The second edition of The Blind Man, published by New York Dadaists, generated debate about Fountain; it featured a photograph of the piece along with contributions from Alfred Stieglitz, Louise Norton, Beatrice Wood, and Arensberg.[9]

Fountain disappeared not long after its first exhibition; Calvin Tomkins, who wrote Duchamp's biography, suggests it was most likely discarded as trash by Stieglitz.[10]

What the cited sources add

The Open Library record for ISBN 0939594102 lists "Marcel Duchamp, Fountain", published by Houston Fine Art Press in 1989, 183 pages.[11] The Open Library record for ISBN 0262072319 lists "Baroness Elsa", published by The MIT Press in 2002, 472 pages.[12] The Open Library record for ISBN 9780141979618 lists "Playing to the Gallery", published by Penguin Books in 2016, 144 pages.[13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Martin, "Essential Surrealists", Dempsey Parr, 1999, p. 42; "Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica, 1964", tate.org.uk; Gavin Parkinson, The Duchamp Book: Tate Essential Artists Series, Harry N. Abrams, 2008, p. 61,; Dalia Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 124, 133,; Cabanne, P., & Duchamp, M. (1971). Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "An Overview of the Seventeen Known Versions of Fountain", 2007 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica, 1964", tate.org.uk; Gavin Parkinson, The Duchamp Book: Tate Essential Artists Series, Harry N. Abrams, 2008, p. 61,; To achieve an orientation resembling the photograph, an additional rotation by 180° about a vertical axis is necessary. The effect of both may be achieved by a ; Dalia Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 124, 133,; Adcock, Craig. Duchamp's Eroticism: A Mathematical Analysis, Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987): 149–167, Iowa Research Onl en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gaffney, Peter D, "Demiurgic machines: The mechanics of New York Dada. A study of the machine art of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and other members of New Y; Hopkins, David, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared, Volume 21 of Clarendon studies in the history of art, Clarendon Press, 1998, p. 74,; Biro, Matthew, The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin, G – Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series, University of Minne (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cabanne, Dialogs with Marcel Duchamp, p. 55; Levine and Halle, "Fountain (After Duchamp: 1-6) La Fortune (After Duchamp: 1-6) La Fortune (After Man Ray: 1-6)", Grand Street, 1992, p. 81–95; Cabanne, P., & Duchamp, M. (1971). Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp; "Fountain", wrote the committee, "may be a very useful object in its place, but its place is not an art exhibition, and it is by no definition, a work of art."; Unsigned review, "His Art Too Crude for Independents", The New York Herald, 14 April 1917 (cited in Camfield, 1989, op.cit en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cabanne, Pierre, & Duchamp, Marcel, Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp, Hudson, 1971, translated from French by Ron Padgett, Da Capo Press, archive.org (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "A Museum That is Not", www.e-flux.com; Duchamp, "Boîte-en-valise [The box in a valise]", Item held by National Gallery of Australia; "MoMA.org Interactives Exhibitions 1999 Museum as Muse Duchamp", www.moma.org; "From or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy", Cleveland Museum of Art, 31 October 2018; Martin, "Essential Surrealists", Dempsey Parr, 1999, p. 42–47; "An Overview of the Seventeen Known Versions of Fountain", www.cabinetmagazine.org, Fall 2007; Essay on Fountain; Funcke, "Not Objects so much as Images", November 2023, p. 279 en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica, 1964", tate.org.uk; Camfield, "Marcel Duchamp, Fountain", Houston Fine Art Press, 1989, p. 183 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: The Blind Man, Vol. 2, 1917, p. 5.; Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, p. 185. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Fountain (Duchamp)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gayford, Martin, "The practical joke that launched an artistic revolution", The Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2008, p. 10 at 11; Marcel Duchamp to Suzanne, 11 April 1917. Jean Crotti papers, 1913–1973, bulk 1913–1961. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Gammel, Irene, "Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada, and Everyday Modernity", The MIT Press, 2002, p. 222–227; Marcel Duchamp, Affectionately, Marcel: The Selected Correspondence of Marcel Duchamp, ed. Francis M. Naumann and Hector Obalk (Ghent: Ludion Press, 2000), p. 4 (we als en.wikipedia.org
  11. Open Library record, ISBN 0939594102 ("Marcel Duchamp, Fountain"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  12. Open Library record, ISBN 0262072319 ("Baroness Elsa"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  13. Open Library record, ISBN 9780141979618 ("Playing to the Gallery"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Fountain (Duchamp) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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