Fountain

Fountain is a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp. It is one of the pieces which he called readymades (also known as found art), because he made use of an already existing object—in this case a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". It was submitted to an art show as an act of provocation, but was lost shortly after this. It is a major landmark in 20th century art. Replicas commissioned by Duchamp in the 1960s are now on display in museums. Marcel Duchamp had arrived in the United States less than two years prior to the creation of Fountain, and had become involved with Dada, an anti-rational, anti-art cultural movement, in New York City. Creation of Fountain began when, accompanied by the artist Joseph Stella and art collector Walter Arensberg, he purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J.L. Mott Iron Works, 118 Fifth Avenue. When the urinal was in his studio at 33 West 67th Street, he turned it 90 degrees from its normal position, and wrote on it "R. Mutt... full article at wikipedia