Well, Marcel Duchamp's, "Fountain" is one
of the best known works of art in the 20th
century.
It's really such a game changer.
It's one of the first Dada works.
It's really one of the first conceptual works.
I mean, so much contemporary art harkens back
to "Fountain"; the idea of taking a store
bought plumbing fixture, a urinal, signing
it with a, sort of, facetious pseudonym and
putting it on a pedestal.
That was, as I say, it was a game changer.
It really made people think twice about what
constitutes art.
And so, for over a century, that's how "Fountain",
as it was called, as he facetiously called
it, was always understood.
But in my research, I realized that when Duchamp
famously exhibited it to an art exhibition,
where he knew it was going to be rejected,
even though they had claimed rather pretenciously
that they would accept all art that was given
to them, when he did that was only 2 or 3
days after the United States had declared
war on Germany.
And Duchamp was very anti-war.
He had left Paris in disgust at the war.
He was such a non-nationalist, anti-nationalist,
he didn't think that the French were any better
than their supposed enemies, the Germans.
He thought these were militarists and imperialists
and he didn't want to have anything to do
with it.
So when he came to America, he thought he
was escaping all that.
And, in April of 1917, when America declares
war and the country is hysterical with endorsement
of the war, he's revolted and that's the point
which he buys this urinal, signs it, sends
it to the show, which claimed to be entirely
democratic, and yet, they reject it.
I think that was a comment on democracy itself.
Woodrow Wilson had sent us to war saying,
"To make the world safe for democracy."
I think Duchamp was trying to show that up
and if I may say, it was about piss on war,
it was piss on this world regime that is going
into place here and the America's joining.
