Origin: Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp coined the term readymade in 1915 to describe a common object that had been selected and not materially altered in any way. Duchamp assembled the first readymade, entitled Bicycle Wheel in 1913 by attached a common front wheel and fork to the seat of a common stool. This was not long after his Nude Descending a Staircase was attracting the attention of critics at the International Exhibition of Modern Art. His Fountain, a urinal which he signed with the pseudonym "R. Mutt", confounded the art world in 1917. His Bottle Rack is a bottle drying rack signed by Duchamp, and is considered to be the first "pure" readymade.
Research by Rhonda Roland Shearer indicates that Duchamp may have fabricated his found objects. Exhaustive research of mundane items like snow shovels and bottle racks in use at the time failed to reveal identical matches. The urinal, upon close inspection, is non-functional. However, there are accounts of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella being with Duchamp when he purchased the original Fountain at J. L. Mott Iron Works.
Read more about this topic: Found Object
Famous quotes containing the word duchamp:
“The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem.... I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.”
—Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)