portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Saturday, February 08, 2025

ART FROM THE FUTURE - Duchamp Ready Mades : The Urinal R.Mutt 1917

DUCHAMP Ready Made - Art From The Future 

from the Tate Modern:

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Oh hello, cross-holes. Fancy seeing you here. 
SF-MOMA’s edition has the triangle holes, but it also has a line of holes at the top that are completely different from either other version. 
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Here’s one from Moderna Museet. Line and a circular set of holes!
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Duchamp definitely intentionally made these different on purpose. It’s a “readymade” but it’s not, really, each of these is a specific custom creation. 
It’s not even clear if he made it! He wrote a letter to his sister claiming that a female friend sent it to him, and he just enrolled it in the art exhibit under his own name. There’s also a possibility that that female friend was himself, since he later had a female pseudonym of Rrose Sélav. 

This whole piece of art is a fractal troll, and it’s a beautiful one. 

The only possible correction I can make is Duchamp’s alter ego’s name was Rrose Sélavy.  C'est la vie. Anglicé, “That’s life.”


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