Settings: Artist Research- Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp
Fountain
1917
Readymade urinal

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T07/T07573_9.jpg

The idea that I had for the Settings Installation stemmed originally from the appropriations of Marcel Duchamp. I liked the idea that he took an object and placed it into an environment that it would not usually be seen in to cause the viewer to challenge their assumptions about the object and the way that they view things based on where they are positioned.

Duchamp's Fountain is one of his most famous works and is seen as an icon of twentieth century art. The work is an example of Duchamp's readymades, where he would take an ordinary manufactured object and determine it as a work of art. He was making an assault on the notion of good taste and convention within high art that was so prevalent at the time. He took an ordinary article of everyday life and placed it in such a way that its usual significance was no more, vanishing behind its new title and position. He was able to take a urinal and remove the stigma by creating a new thought for the object.

I think the work was open to many interpretations but I feel as though all of them would have been what Duchamp had hoped for. Through the use of the title and the placement within a gallery space, Duchamp ensured that the viewer would be forced to alter their perspective on an item that would generally be seen in a completely different way. The work is was a major turning point within the artworld. It forced the idea that the convention of high art could be challenged and that items within the gallery were bound by their context. 

I am unsure how I would change the work because I think at the time, the work was exactly how it needed to be. It challenged the pre-existing ideas around art and what constituted it. The simplicity of it what so effective in giving the message that Duchamp had intended.