Famous sculpture by Marcel Duchamp
This is a very famous piece of art. You have seen reproductions of it in many art books over the years. It consists of a standard urinal set sideways. It's signed by "R. Mutt". It was a time when Duchamp was becoming increasingly disenfranchised with painting per se. He settled on this particular piece by going to a hardware store and looking through the inventory until he found it.
It was submitted in 1917 to an exhibition of The New York Society of Independent Artists to test their sincerity in their pledge to accept ANY artwork into the exhibition. They failed the test, rejecting the piece. Fountain is essentially a urinal turned on it's side. This is an early example of what was later to be called Readymades. The original was lost, but some reproductions were approved by the artist and one now resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, another in the Tate Modern.
Other readymades include the Bicycle wheel, and L.H.O.O.Q.
Related nodes:
Tomkins, Calvin, "DUCHAMP A Biography", Henry Holt and Co, NY, 1996
>Last Updated 07.21.03