Photograph: Giuseppe Schiavinotto
Water works
In 1917, Duchamp performed a remarkable trick, imbuing an everyday object with the shock of the new. Bought from a plumbing manufacturer, a urinal was signed R Mutt, placed on its side and presented for exhibition at the Society of Independent Artists in New York.
Splash back
Fountain was apparently conceived as a test for the forward-thinking ethos espoused by the society where Duchamp was a director. Submitted anonymously, it was rejected as “immoral”.
Ready, steady, go
Duchamp’s first “readymade” was a snow shovel, hung from his studio ceiling. But, for obvious reasons, the suggestion that the place where you pee could be art snagged the imagination in a different way.
Brain drain
It’s more than a great one-liner. Duchamp’s notion that art is about authoring ideas, not unique, handmade objects, changed history. It’s fitting too that the Fountains seen in museums are copies and that the “original” urinal was lost long ago.
