Sliding from eye to ‘I’, Fountain gushes with conundra about the very nature of creation and what it really means to be a maker. Its significance instead lies in the object’s ability surreptitiously to skirt the scrutiny and prejudices of the eye and to engage the mind instead in a match of philosophical wits. After all, Duchamp did not forge the sculpture from clay with his own hands. For the first time, the significance of a work of art has been detached utterly from the artist's role in making it. When it comes to contemplating Fountain, observers must rethink how an aesthetic object should be approached and put aside conventional biases about the nature of artistic craftsmanship. Such arduous anonymity is instructive in helping us establish principles for appreciating one of the most controversial works of art in the past century. Once back in Duchamp’s possession, Fountain was whisked away to pose for Duchamp’s friend, the legendary photographer Alfred Stieglitz, whose iconic black-and-white portrait of the piece quickly etched itself into cultural consciousness.ĭuchamp’s reluctance to sign his own name to the work, his refusal to claim credit for it, and his strenuous efforts to avoid being seen removing the work, demonstrate a remarkable resolve to distance the maker from the made. Left with no other possible move, he resigned.ĭoing so, however, left him with an awkward challenge: how, physically, to retrieve the scandalous sculpture without exposing himself as its impish author? Yet somehow Duchamp succeeded in smuggling the work out of the society undetected, aided no doubt by the reliable prejudice of anyone who might have observed him, never believing that the cumbersome hunk of porcelain plumbing was an object worth protecting.
When Fountain was rejected by fellow members on grounds of aesthetic crudity, Duchamp found his conscience suddenly cornered. Duchamp then watched with disappointment, if not surprise, when the question of whether to exhibit the piece was put to a vote, in hypocritical violation, he believed, of the society’s widely-publicised open-mindedness.