December 2017
Intermediate to advanced
208 pages
3h 39m
English
Although an artwork is usually defined as a product of human agency, some modern artists have contended that any object whatsoever can be presented or designated as a work of art. Such objects are known as “readymades.”
The first readymade appeared in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) famously exhibited, or tried to exhibit, a porcelain urinal as a sculpture. The piece was signed “R. Mutt.”
The work was photographed by Alfred Stieglitz and became a cause célèbre when the New York Dadaist magazine The Blind Man published an editorial supporting the new art form: “Whether Mr. Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance ...