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They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit. Mr.Richard Mutt (= Duchamp, ed.) sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited. What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt’s fountain:
1. Some contented it was immoral, vulgar.
2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.
Now, Mr. Mutt’s fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tube is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumber’s show windows. Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made this fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that’s its useful significance disappeared under the new title (‘The Richard Mutt Case’ he made in 1917, ed.) and point of view, created a new thought for that object. As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.
--
own comment on his artwork 'The Fountain': The Richard Mutt Case, Marcel Duchamp, 'Blind Man', New York, 1917: 5; as quoted in "heories and Documents of Contemporary Art, – a sourcebook of Artist’s writings", ed. Kristine Stiles / Peter Selz, University of California Press, London, England, 1996, p. 817

 

Marcel Duchamp

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One very hot day when he and I were out with Mom, we got very thirsty and started to walk over to a public water fountain. Mom reminded us that we must use the "coloreds" fountain. Being somewhat rambunctious, however, we made sure no one was watching us, and then we drank, first from the forbidden "whites only" fountain, and after that from the "coloreds" fountain. Then we looked at each other and said, "You know what? The 'whites only' water tastes just the same as the 'coloreds' does!"

 

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