Research/Reading the Masters/Ⅶ Those of Today
Ⅶ — Those of Today · No. 39 / 50
Marcel Duchamp — Fountain
뒤샹 — 〈샘〉
1917. Porcelain urinal with signature. Original lost; multiple authorized replicas exist.
A urinal lies on its side. It bears the signature “R. Mutt 1917.” That is all.
Duchamp did not make a beautiful object by hand. He selected an existing object, changed its orientation, and placed it at the threshold of exhibition. The question was directed not at the object alone but at the institution of art.
What makes art art? The artist’s hand, the act of selection, the exhibition space, or the viewer’s agreement? Fountain gives no answer. It destabilizes the definition itself.
It is difficult to place Byun Shi-Ji beside Duchamp. One questioned the institution; the other spent a lifetime before an easel drawing lines. Yet neither accepted familiarity as final. Duchamp brought the outside of art inside; Byun brought invisible wind into the picture.
One asked, “Can this be art?” The other asked, “How can the invisible be painted?”
The urinal remains a question.
The interpretation is the author’s. No unverified statement has been presented as the artist’s own words.