144. Fountain (second Version). Marcel Duchamp. 1950 CE (Original 1917). Readymade glazed sanitary china with black paint.

• Form
  • Ready-made sculpture; actually a found object that Duchamp deemed to be a work of art
  • Signed by the “artist,” R. Mutt, a pun on the Mutt and Jeff comic strip and Mott Iron Works
  • Item purchased from a sanitary-ware supplier and submitted to the Society of Independent Artists, a group that Duchamp helped to found
• Function and History
  • Enters in an unjuried show, the work was refused–narrowly voted out by the organizers
  • Thought to be indecent, not fit to show women.
  • Duchamp resigned in protest
  • It is not fully understood why Duchamp resigned; it may have come from his experience exhibiting an earlier work Nde Descending a Staircase to the Salon des Independants in Paris; although the work was illustrated in the show’s catalog, Duchamp was asked to remove it a few days before the opening.
  • He removed the object but felt betrayed; said it was a turning point in his life
  • Fountain can be seen as an experimental replay by Duchamp, testing the commitment of the new American Society to freedom of expressions and tolerance of new conception about art
• Context
  • The title is a pun: a fountain spouts liquid, a urinal collects it
  • The placing of the urinal down is an added irony
  • The rotation of Fountain may symbolize seeing something familiar from a new perspective
  • The original is now lost; Duchamp oversaw the “remaking” of a few models in 1964.