Fountain

When a newly purchased urinal signed "R. Mutt" was submitted anonymously to the Independent Artists’ exhibition in New York in 1917, it was thrown out. It didn’t look like art, so it wasn’t, they said. Moreover, it was obscene, or possibly a joke. Marcel Duchamp claimed that this was obviously a work of art, since the intention was to display "Fountain" in an exhibition space. This statement launched an entirely new art concept. That there were ideas behind art was nothing new, but the thought that the idea alone could transform something into art was revolutionary. By removing a mass-produced object from its useful purpose, it could be given a new meaning. Readymade was the term Duchamp began using in the early 1900s. Original and copy are ambiguous concepts in relation to Duchamp: most works are replicas and reconstructions made according to his consultation and signed by him. This particular one was bought from a restaurant in Stockholm.