But is it art?
An upturned urinal with the words
‘R. Mutt 1917’ written on it, Fountain (1917) marked a seminal moment in the history of Western art, with the act of declaring a found object to be an artwork transforming it into one. Danielle So, head of day sale, specialist and auctioneer, 20th century and contemporary art at auction house Phillips, explains how the work by French conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp changed her life.
This was the artwork that kicked off my interest in art during my school years. I say this because it first came up in an
(admissions) interview with a professor at University College
London, who showed me Fountain and asked if I had anything to say. Up until that stage I’d never seen it. I was clueless – I’d
never considered this question. I was confronted with this
standard urinal, and I didn’t know what to say.
It opened up a lot of questions for me: what constitutes a
work of art? Who gets to decide? Can it derive from an idea
alone or does the hand of an artist have to be involved? It was
a representation of challenging norms, and it turned my idea of
art on its head: taking an ordinary object and coining it a work
of art.
Going away from that interview, I thought I really need to look
into what that work is about. I went to see it at Tate Modern (in
London). Seeing it “in person”, all of those ideas came back into
my mind.
It really stuck with me. Whenever I view an object, there’s
always this question at the back of my mind: can this be
considered art? Do we have to stick by the rules? It comes
into my work nowadays, of course. Working in an auction house,
there are certain rules when preparing for a sale, and part of
me wants to push those rules. Sometimes that’s about the
curation of a sale, opening up the entries to include young and
emerging artists.
Fountain is super relevant today, with the rise of NFTs, a medium that has also shaken up the art world. Duchamp’s
work reminds me to just have an open mind when facing new
things in the art world. With NFTs, it’s not just about the
commercial value; it’s also opened up new possibilities
for artists. What makes an artist and who decides? It
all relates back to Duchamp, whether it’s an ordinary
object in his case or something digital that also
doesn’t involve traditional skills.
I viewed Fountain initially with a fresh pair of eyes, without knowing much about the history
behind it. Now, working in the business, my
takeaway from it is that you can still break
away from all the rules and regulations
we have to abide by. In an era when you’re
constantly bombarded by crowd opinion,
the ability to stay authentic and true to
self has become most pertinent to me.