Answer

The Fountain Artwork by Marcel Duchamp

Introduction

Several artworks are personal statements and those statements can take several forms. Some artworks are made by borrowing figures, objects or whole compositions from other artists work.  This method is termed as appropriation and can be traced to Marcel Duchamp of ready-mades which comprise of typical objects changed into artworks merely by a decision the artist makes. When Duchamp initiated ready-mades like Fountain into the art realm, he was challenging prevailing artistic norms and shifting the concentration to the concepts behind the work instead of its physical appearance. This paper discusses the Fountain artwork by Marcel Duchamp.

Fountain is a 1950 porcelain urinal made by Duchamp. Fountain was presented to the Society of Independent Artists as the initial places for experimental art in America. The ready-mades defied the very thought of artistic production and what comprise art in a gallery or museum. Hence Duchamp triggered his viewers by assessing the exhibition organizers open-minded assertions to acknowledge all works without prejudice or the conservative prejudice that made it problematic to exhibit contemporary art in most museums (DeWitte et al., 2015).  Fountain is termed as “ready-made” sculpture, implying that it is a typical, manufactured object that artist has merely chosen and adapted somehow. For years Duchamp advocated for the usage of ready-mades which are existing objects obtained from real life and renovated or re-contextualized to operate as artwork. The thought at hand, of art mainly as a concept instead of an object is what made Fountain debatably the most intellectually enthralling and challenging artwork of the twentieth century.

DeWitte et al. (2015) state that Duchamp is commonly perceived as among the artists who assisted in defining the revolutionary advancements in plastic arts in the 20^th century and as being accountable for substantial advancements in canvas and sculpture.  His works transformed the art history course immensely and his concepts continue shaking the art world. Duchamp’s linguistic element of his work is amongst the contributions that created conceptual art. His experimentation with classical methods and subjects and his early creations is associated with post-impressionism (Winkenweder, 2017). Duchamp had been testing with originality concepts challenging the art world to recognize as genuine what he termed as ready-mades or daily commercial objects that he believed, by placing them in a new cultural framework as artwork.

 In Fountain case, Duchamp bought it from JL Mott Iron works as a new urinal which he attempted to separate from its acknowledged identity. Duchamp’s Fountain also provoked questions concerning what is meant by art entirely and who gets to choose what art is. Duchamp’s provocation typified not only his art, however likewise the brief inexplicable and exceedingly varied trans-national bunch of artists who comprised the Dada movement (Petrov, 2016). The industrial age had transformed how art is perceived and new media and mass production technologies discredited the remains of classical artistic customs that were still being fostered by museums. Duchamp’s readymade idea which he started investigating since 1913 with works like Bottle Rack and Bicycle Wheel defied these challenges by exposing the art idea to intense inspection. 

Conclusion

In all the ready-mades series artworks, Fountain is popular due to the symbolic implication of the toilet assumes the conceptual challenge presented by ready-mades to their most instinctual extreme. Fountain is an illustration of Duchamp’s readymade. Ready-mades were mass-made, typical modern life objects that were changed by an artist’s creativity. Several artists have since made artwork utilizing normal found objects however Duchamp got the consideration for this style first.