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MARCEL DUCHAMP's Fountain The International JOURNALof the ARTS IN SOCIETY Volume 3, Number 5 Fountain Mediated: Marcel Duchamp’s Artwork and its Adapting Material Content Yannis Zavoleas www.arts-journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ARTS IN SOCIETY http://www.arts-journal.com First published in 2009 in Melbourne, Australia by Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2009 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2009 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. ISSN: 1833-1866 Publisher Site: http://www.Arts-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ARTS IN SOCIETY is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/ Fountain Mediated: Marcel Duchamp’s Artwork and its Adapting Material Content Yannis Zavoleas, University of Patras, Greece Abstract: The paper draws upon the relationship between artistic documentation and content over Marcel Duchamp’s sculpture work Fountain. The original Fountain was lost soon after it was created in 1917. Since then, Fountain has been reproduced in various media formats, such as photographs, descriptions and replicas. It may be argued that the mediated Fountains were treated as artworks of their own, meanwhile holding and aiding to increase the artistic aura of the original. Fountain is a special case for the following reasons: starting from 1917, it has triggered critical questions related to au- thenticity of artistic creation, such as whether an object of manufacture could be attributed artistic value, also whether re- productions of original artworks may be treated as artworks, too. Even so, Fountain’s artistic significance has been radically different over time. Rather surprisingly, a comparative examination of the mediated Fountains shows substantial differences in the objective information they present, to such an extent that artistic characterizations to which artwork is tied in prin- cipal, become questionable. A reverse relationship among the mediated Fountains and the original may be weaved, so that in documenting the artwork, its material content would even have to be modified in order to comply with the concurrent artistic standards. Keywords: Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, Duchamp, Stieglitz, Artistic Documentation, Authenticity, Originality, Original/Copy, Artistic Reproduction duce Fountain, as the elements composing it are “In Milan I have just made a contract with clearly distinguishable and also present in the artwork Schwarz, authorizing him to make an edition with minor or no manipulation by the artist; a remark (8 replicas) of all my few ready-mades. … But upon which Fountain’s classification as a ready- signature or no signature, your find has the made is essentially based.2 same ‘metaphysical’ value as any other ready- However, a close examination of Fountain’s doc- made, [it] even has the advantage to have no umentations raises dilemmas in regards to the ele- 1 commercial value.” ments artwork is composed of. The present inquiry (Marcel Duchamp, response to Douglas compares Fountain’s various appearances, descrip- Gorseline, July 28 1964) tions and references, in order to highlight significant differences among them. Consequently, direct pre- ARCEL DUCHAMP’S Fountain is a sumptions of artwork’s material content are debated; symbolic artwork of Modernity. The ori- moreover, a thread is weaved connecting the forma- Mginal was made in 1917 and it was lost tion of artistic beliefs to the driving forces of artistic soon after it was created; consequently, activity in general, such as artistic production and references about Fountain are applied upon its repro- promotion, also criticism, descriptions, interpreta- ductions, a fact that emphasizes even more artwork’s tions and evaluations of art. pioneering role in addressing critical issues about art, such as artistic creation, originality, authenticity, Fountain Described, Photographed, copy and mass production. It is assumed that Foun- Drawn, Sketched and Replicated tain’s material content is transferred essentially un- changed through its various documentations. Such Over time, Fountain appeared in various media a belief is further supported by the mere observation formats, including descriptions, photographs, draw- that technically it is very simple to execute and repro- ings, sketches and replicas. Firstly, Fountain was 1 Naumann, Francis M. Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Amsterdam: Ludion Press & New York: Abrams Books, 2002, p.245. 2 The ready-made is a “commonplace prefabricated object, which – with or without alteration – is isolated from its functional context and elevated to the status of art by the mere act of the artist’s selection.” Ibid., p.299. In principle, a ready-made would be intentionally contro- versial, as it deals indiscriminately with both mass-produced, industrially manufactured, objects and the unique works by individual artists made specifically to question the presumed artistic and commercial value of both. Ades, Dawn & Cox, Neil & Hopkins, David. Marcel Duchamp. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999, p.152. THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ARTS IN SOCIETY, VOLUME 3, NUMBER 5, 2009 http://www.arts-journal.com, ISSN 1833-1866 © Common Ground, Yannis Zavoleas, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: [email protected] 78 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ARTS IN SOCIETY, VOLUME 3 submitted as a sculptural work in front of the Society those made in 1964, when Duchamp created eight of Independent Artists’ board of directors,3 to be replicas for the scholar/collector Arturo Schwarz, in shown at the art exhibition The Big Show in New order to be displayed along with other ready-made York, in April 1917. Duchamp submitted the work replicas of his work at the Schwarz gallery in Milan. using the pseudonym “Richard Mutt” in order to hide his involvement as Fountain’s creator, also given Artwork’s Composing Elements that he was one of the founding members of the So- ciety and among the organizers/directors of The Big Fountain’s Early Documentation in 1917 Show. Despite the democratic principals of the Soci- ety and the “no jury” policy that would not allow the In search of Fountain’s composing elements, the Show organizers to evaluate submissions, Fountain present inquiry compares artwork’s documenting was refused for display.4 The submitted work was evidence of various occasions. Starting from The lost and there is no photographic evidence of it. Big Show in 1917, the information about the submit- Thereafter, Duchamp made a series of reproductions ted work is quite ambiguous. In one source is de- for various occasions, such as art exhibitions and scribed: “a white porcelain urinal appeared on a black 5 publications. He created the first copy of Fountain pedestal in the storeroom.” Another source notes as a sculptural piece a few days later and while The that Fountain was delivered by a female friend of 6 Big Show was still open, in order to exhibit it to a Duchamp, probably Louise Norton. In another ver- private art show at the “291” gallery, in the studio sion, “this object [the urinal] was delivered to the of photographer Alfred Stieglitz in New York. That Grand Central Palace, together with an envelope piece was photographed and the “Stieglitz photo- bearing the fictitious Mr. Mutt’s six-dollar member- 7 graph” was presented in the main theme of The Blind ship and entry fee and the work’s title: “Fountain.” Man art magazine second issue of May 1917. The Wood also described “walking into one of the exhib- editors of The Blind Man were Duchamp, Beatrice ition’s storerooms and finding two members of the Wood and Henri-Pierre Roché. Blind Man’s first is- board of directors of the Society, Walter Arensberg sue of April 1917 coincided with the opening of The and George Bellows, in the midst of a furious argu- Big Show. The second edition of May was devoted ment, with the ‘glistening white object’ on the floor 8 to Fountain’s defense, presenting the Stieglitz pho- between them.” Based on related descriptions, it is tograph along with two related articles, “The Richard generally accepted that the submitted artwork was Mutt Case” and “Buddha of the Bathroom.” Copies mainly composed of a standard porcelain lavatory of the Stieglitz photograph and of The Blind Man urinal coming directly from J. L. Mott Iron Works second issue still exist. Fountain’s subsequent docu- Company, a manufacturer of plumbing equipment, mentation includes two photographs of the interior signed and dated as “R. Mutt 1917.” of Duchamp’s studio taken sometime between 1917 For some time after The Big Show it was not and 1918, showing artwork hanging from the lintel known what happened to the submitted work, as for of a doorway together with other ready-mades. Later years it was believed that it disappeared or that it on, Duchamp reproduced or supervised copies of was destroyed. Duchamp’s later interview to Pierre Fountain several times in the size of the original, as Cabanne in 1966 shortly before his death (he died well as in miniature scale. In 1938 a large number in 1968) illuminates the facts: “the Fountain was of three-dimensional miniature copies were made simply placed behind a partition and, for the duration for Duchamp’s artwork The Box in a Valise of 1941. of the exhibition, I didn’t know where it was. … Later series of copies, drawings, sketches and photo- After the exhibition, we found the Fountain again, graphs were presented, with most important ones 3 The Society of Independent Artists was a group of American and European artists founded in December 1916.
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