It is clear that Duchamp’s submission of the urinal to a New York exhibition in 1917 was a profoundly Upon the startling implications of the readymade. Philosophy of art began to build a theoretical edifice that surrendered the opportunity to reflect fruitfully Thus, at the very moment when sceptical inquiry was clearly in order, a new current in the The readymades to live comfortably side by side with Rembrandt’s portraits and Constable’s The new discourse was founded on the necessity of finding a way of defining art which would permit And there wasĪ momentous shift of interest in the discourse of aesthetic philosophers, from art itself – whatĭraws viewers into the gallery – to considering some version of signing things as the primal artisticĪct. Was merely someone who signed things” ( The World of Marcel Duchamp, 1966). Is hinted at in Tomkin’s further remark that “Duchamp seemed to be implying that. The Louvre and the Uffizi are alive and well: it was not traditional painting that took it on theĬhin after Duchamp, but the philosophy of art. Undermined several centuries of Western art with his readymades.” Mozart’s contemporary was Mutt’ andĬaptioned ‘Fountain’, author and art critic Calvin Tomkins declared that Duchamp had “quietly Of such works by Marcel Duchamp as a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool and a urinal signed ‘R.

Said, “This young man will cause us all to be forgotten.” In 1977, evaluating the influence In hearing the music of the young Mozart, an obscure eighteenth century composer is reported to have

SUBSCRIBE NOW Articles Did Duchamp’s Urinal Flush Away Art? Roy Turner scorns the fact that after Duchamp, critics have questioned the status of ‘traditional’ Western art, making the act of designation the sole determinant of art.

Submissive by Roy Turner