Fountain

by Pericles Lewis The most famous dada artist, Marcel Duchamp, living in New York, submitted to an exhibition a piece entitled “Fountain” (1917). One of his “ready-mades,” or mass-produced objects that he purchased and presented as art, “Fountain” was a urinal, turned upside down and signed “R. Mutt.” Duchamp was claiming, in effect, that he… Continue Reading Fountain

L.H.O.O.Q.

by Pericles Lewis In 1919, the same year in which T.S. Eliot wrote “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” the dadaist Marcel Duchamp presented a less reverent way of relating to past artistic tradition. Duchamp exhibited one of his “assisted ready-mades,” which consisted of a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” on which he drew… Continue Reading L.H.O.O.Q.