2019.04.26 马塞尔-杜尚是如何小便的

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How Marcel Duchamp took the piss
That urinal wasn’t art. Or was it? Fiammetta Rocco tests the waters

Apr 26th 2019 (Updated Jun 12th 2019)

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By Fiammetta Rocco

In the spring of 1917, when Europe’s armies were mired in bloody stalemate, Marcel Duchamp, a young sculptor who had fled France to join the roiling New York art world, took a porcelain urinal, flipped it on its back, signed his name as “R. Mutt” and christened the piece a work of art. He paid $6 to show it as “Fountain” in the inaugural exhibition of the American Society of Independent Artists. At an emergency meeting, the organisers rejected it. Though they prided themselves on championing everything new and progressive, this was too much. It wasn’t art. Or was it?

A little magazine called the Blind Man, co-edited by Duchamp, ignited a debate still running today. “Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He chose it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – and created a new thought for the object.”


More musing than manifesto, that idea was prophetic. Conceptual art was born. Critics opined that the piece had the shape of a Buddha, the colour of an angel; it contained “references”, a phrase that became beloved of 20th-century writing on art. Duchamp turned everyday, ready-made objects into art. Without Duchamp there would have been no Damien Hirst.

When the American Society rejected Duchamp’s work, Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer, took it to his studio, snapped it and then threw the original away. But what is original here? The factory version or the photographic one? Or any of the 17 reproduction fountains Duchamp commissioned out of glazed earthenware and signed in the 1960s? Today these urinals stand as pillars of the Tate, the Pompidou Centre and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Nearly 20 years ago one fetched $1.8m at auction; none has been sold since.

Duchamp barely bothered to take credit for the first, rejected urinal, but extolled his own mastery as the pennies from the later Fountains tinkled in. Earlier this year Siri Hustvedt, an American essayist, presented a detailed case showing that Duchamp didn’t dream up the work himself: she claims he pinched the idea from Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a German artist whose contribution he then expunged. She must have been pissed off.■

The Essential Duchamp is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until August 11th

fountain, 1917 (replica 1964) marcel duchamp © association marcel duchamp/adagp, paris and dacs, london 2019



马塞尔-杜尚是如何小便的
那个小便池不是艺术。或者是吗？菲亚梅塔-罗科试水

2019年4月26日 (2019年6月12日更新)


作者：菲亚梅塔-罗科

1917年春天，当欧洲的军队陷入血腥的僵局时，马塞尔-杜尚（Marcel Duchamp），一个从法国逃到纽约艺术界的年轻雕塑家，拿着一个瓷制的小便池，把它翻过来，签上自己的名字 "R. Mutt"，把这件作品称为艺术品。他花了6美元，在美国独立艺术家协会的开幕展上以 "喷泉 "的名义展出。在一次紧急会议上，组织者们拒绝了它。虽然他们以倡导一切新的和进步的东西为荣，但这太过分了。这不是艺术。或者说它是吗？

一本由杜尚共同编辑的名为《盲人》的小杂志，引发了一场至今仍在进行的辩论。"穆特先生是否亲手制作了这个喷泉并不重要。他选择了它。他把一件普通的生活用品，放置在新的标题和观点下，使其有用的意义消失了--并为该物体创造了一个新的思想。


与其说是宣言，不如说是思考，这个想法是预言。观念艺术诞生了。批评家们认为，这件作品有佛的形状，天使的颜色；它包含了 "参考"，这个短语成为20世纪艺术写作的最爱。杜尚将日常的、现成的物品变成了艺术。没有杜尚，就没有达明-赫斯特。

当美国社会拒绝杜尚的作品时，摄影师阿尔弗雷德-斯蒂格利茨（Alfred Stieglitz）把它带到他的工作室，拍下它，然后把原件扔掉。但这里什么是原作？是工厂的版本还是摄影的版本？还是杜尚在20世纪60年代委托用釉面陶器制作并签名的17个复制品喷泉中的任何一个？今天，这些小便池成为泰特美术馆、蓬皮杜中心和旧金山现代艺术博物馆的支柱。近20年前，一个小便池在拍卖会上拍出了180万美元的价格；此后再也没有卖出过。

杜尚几乎懒得为第一个被拒绝的小便池邀功，但当后来的《喷泉》的硬币叮咚作响时，他却赞叹自己的精湛技艺。今年早些时候，美国散文家Siri Hustvedt提出了一个详细的案例，表明杜尚不是自己想出来的作品：她声称他是从德国艺术家Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven那里偷来的想法，然后他删除了她的贡献。她一定是被气坏了。

杜尚精粹》在新南威尔士州艺术馆展出至8月11日。

喷泉，1917年（复制品，1964年） 马塞尔-杜尚©马塞尔-杜尚协会/ADAGP，巴黎和DACS，伦敦 2019年