Marcel Duchamp was an artist who was able to create an effortless art career for himself while simultaneously forcing the entire world to rethink the definition of art. Born in 1887 in France, he became an American citizen later in life and ultimately became known for his Dadaist “Readymades”. These found objects presented as art by Duchamp had a huge impact on the art of the twentieth and indeed twenty-first centuries. This movement was in opposition to “retinal” art and instead intended to put art back in the service of the mind. “Duchamp is generally considered to be the father of conceptual art”, according to The Art Story. (artstory)
Duchamp’s early work aligned itself more with the traditional definition of artwork of the day. It was
…show more content…
“To find a point of indifference in my looking at it, you see,” as Duchamp has noted in an interview. (youtube) Bottle Rack (1914) signed by Duchamp is considered the first pure Readymade; the second Prelude to a Broken Arm in 1915, a snow shovel with this title painted on. The term Readymade was coined to mean “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” (toutfait) Bottle Rack, having not been modified in any way, is one of the few true examples of a Readymade. Both of these like many of his Readymades were ultimately lost, although there are several replicas of each authorized by Duchamp. The replicas were commissioned once Duchamp’s career really began to take off and he was able to sell …show more content…
Its replicas have been urinated in several times as acts of performance art. “[Duchamp’s] conception of the ready-made decisively altered our understanding of what constitutes an object of art,” (MoMA) according to the Museum of Metropolitan Art. It is difficult to say whether he intended this piece to be taken seriously as art. Of course, artist intention matters not, however, Duchamp has been cited as agreeing with Hans Richter’s statement that “when [Duchamp] discovered the readymades, [he] sought to discourage aesthetics. [He] threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty.”