Marcel Duchamp Analysis

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain People often ask what constitutes good art. Who decides whether or not a piece is art and whether it is good art or not? Marcel Duchamp challenged popular notions of his day about what art actually is. Duchamp, a French artist living in New York at the turn of the century, believed that it was up to the artist to determine what art is. Duchamp is most famous for a type of sculpture he created called “readymades”1. Readymades are ordinary functional household objects that have either been joined to other objects, or chosen to stand alone as sculpture. Examples of his readymades include a coat hanger nailed to the floor of his studio, a hat

Contemporary art has a long history of appropriating material into new work such as Duchamp’s ready-mades where he recontexualizes found source material, the photo collages of Hannah Hoch and today’s remix culture. In Remixthebook, Mark Amerika (2011) argues that in Postproduction art, “the artist takes what has already been produced in culture and, through creative postproduction means, expresses a new cultural configuration that both speaks to contemporary culture as well as the source material that has been remixed”. Traditional crafts such as patchwork and quilt making have also contained ideas of transformation of old collected materials into new forms. By the frugally collecting and repurposing of these waste materials, Gower critiques

Found art (also known as Ready-mades) is a description of art created by modified and undisguised objects that are not considered art for the main reason of their non-art function. The art created by these found objects convey meaning through their context, assemblage/composition and by the artists intention and approaches taken to montage pieces together.

Although mainly associated with painting, Michael Canning also works in the mediums of drawing, printmaking and object making. It might be more appropriate to refer to him as “an artist” rather than “a painter”, but according to him, he is first and foremost “a sculptor”, that is, “interested in the history of materials as much as the history of art” (Canning 2011, 4).

Marcel Duchamp was a phenomenal artist, who gave Art an altered name. He shaped movements such as, Conceptional Art, Dadaism, Surrealism, Pop Art, Installation Art, and created Readymades. Duchamp changed many views on what some people thought was nothing into something. For example, one of Duchamp’s greatest pieces of art is the “Fountain”. The “Fountain” is a urinal, which is most often seen as something functional in its natural environment; yet when Marcel Duchamp placed a urinal in an art exhibition in 1913 and called it Fountain, it was transformed into sculpture. Marcel Duchamp himself described the conventions by which we measure art today, saying, "It is we who have given the name "art" to religious things; the

Recycled old forgotten materials used to create new magnificent assemblages of art, reborn into this world with a new meaning, created with passion and inspiration. This was the new topic, Recycled: imagined for the Year 9 VA class from Sefton High school. This art class studied how artists used recycled objects to create artwork and the art movement “Dada” foundered by the famous “Ready mades” artist, Marcel Duchamp to base their own creations using abandoned encyclopedia Britannica books.

Kimberly Greene Professor Whiting HUMN 2002-Art March 11, 2017 Art Assessment II Task 1: Artist: Marcel Duchamp Title: Fountain

This being said indicates that Pop art could be seen as one of those crossover movements. The confusion and extreme madness of colour and space show events of the Dada influence. Investigating the historical and cultural issues could be the starting point for many artworks and inspiration. To say that an artwork is brash, extreme or subversive, indicates a responds to any artwork or movement. However the point of art, to get a respond either being good or bad… ''If you have serious ideas, you make art, discoveries, and all of a sudden your head starts to break up into laughter, if you find that all your ideas are useless and ridiculous, know that DADA HAS BEGUN TO SPEAK TO YOU'' 10.The readymade object being seen as a thing becomes an issue of context rather than the use of materials. The question it raises, is it art because its contexts are in a gallery space? or should we ask what is the fundamental aim of the objects used? The object of art is the intelligently language in a visual format. The Dada movements short influence could be seen as a weapon that injected humour both in a rebellious and spontaneous revolution.This could be misread and not seen as well though out, however the fundamental elements of Dada and assemblages as still being practiced today as a

He presented this commercial object as art, a form called ‘readymade’, allowing him as an artist to select and modify it, showing that art is not all about artistic technique and expensive materials, testing censorship and peoples thoughts of what traditional art was at the time, and continuing today. Duchamp sparked new ideas of what art was all about, stunning artists and audiences around the world; while continuing to argue “an ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist” , allowing people to see that art could be whatever the artist wanted it to be and what the artist felt it was. This significant change in the way audiences view and appreciate art came from the incident where the Society of Independent Artists, refused to show Duchamp’s, R Mutt’s Fountain. The independents congratulated themselves on championing all that was new and progressive in art, and to

“Dada was the first conceptual art movement where the focus of the artists was not on crafting aesthetically pleasing objects. Dada artists are known for their use of readymade objects - everyday objects that could be bought and presented as art with little manipulation by the artist. The use of the readymade forced questions about artistic creativity and the very definition of art and its purpose in society.” Dada art depicts common everyday objects and nontraditional things in an artistic way.

Dadaism came into the world to confuse all the peers that look upon the work of art each person made to express themselves, this can be for emotion, reaction, love or maybe just because they want to confuse everyone. It all began in 1915, the movement instantly caught fire and spread practically everywhere, no matter where you looked there was some sort of DADA to be seen. Sometimes you didn’t even know it! The artist found inside of this essay will be: Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch and finally Johannes Baader.

Dada was an artistic and literary movement, this arose as a reaction to World War one. Many citizens believed that Dada was actually the cause of World War one, this movement likes to take the form of ‘anti-art’. Therefore, how you can claim everything is art but in reality, nothing is art. For example, take the painting ‘Fountain’ by a Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp it is a readymade painting of an unused urinal. Which is basically implying that he rejected art and thought that we should focus on the artist 's idea more rather than it being crafted. Therefore, using a urinal and labelling it as ‘art’, get’s Duchamp’s point across that a work of art should be the artists idea instead of it being crafted. When looking at Dadaism by Tristan Tzara, there were some interesting quotes. For example, “Like everything in life, Dada is useless. Dada is without pretension, as life should be.” (Tzara, 1918). This quote intrigues me, as Tzara is stating that all art is useless and that Dada is pretension and that is how life should be. This can be used as an example of how Dadaism was inspired by

The text by Marcel Duchamp, The Creative Act, evaluates the roles of artists and spectators. He mentions that artists are not in full control of how their art is perceived, but by the people who view it and talk about it. Ultimately, the spectator gives a work of art its meaning, whether or not it aligns with the artists intentions.

In 1915 the concept of “readymade” art was introduced by Marcel Duchamp when he took an ordinary snow shovel and painted the title In advance of the broken arm. He had previously turned a wheel up-side down and attached it to a stool, creating a piece he called Bicycle wheel. This was also considered a “readymade.” A “readymade” by Duchamp is “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” Duchamp produced many of these “readymades,” but it his readymade entitled Fountain that we will be discussing here. Duchamp’s Fountain originated from a urinal that he with two other friends purchased from a plumber, took to his studio, and turned it on its backside. He painted the pseudonym “R. Mutt” on

In a ‘tradition breaking spirit’ [D’Alleva, 2012], that characterised modernist artists, early in the twentieth century, Duchamp abandoned traditional ideas and techniques, to create a new kind of ‘art’, one that the idea behind a work of art is more important that its visual realization, the ‘retinal’. The ready-mades was the product of Duchamp’s questioning what art is.