Page 24 - summer 22

The show moved to Boston, then Chicago, where the state governor ordered an
investigation. Even so, it was a big hit; half-tone postcards of 57 works were printed.
Duchamp’s painting was sold to a San Francisco collector.

Duchamp was a member of the Dadaist movement which introduced an element of
the absurd to challenge accepted beliefs in art. His most famous work was Fountain,
a sculpture of 1917, an upside-down urinal which he signed “R. Mutt”. The idea was
to pose the question, what defines something as a work of art? To which he appears
to be answering (although there are more scurrilous interpretations) something
which is exhibited in an art gallery. This raised a serious point and anticipates future

debates about popular culture and the playful seriousness of Postmodern art. The
original urinal was lost, possibly thrown away, though reproductions authorised by
the artist were, and still are, exhibited. In 2004, 500 artists voted it the most
th
influential work of art of the 20 century, pushing Picasso’s Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon into second place.

Not all Modernists were playful. Nor did they share a common political outlook. Eliot
became a devout Anglican. Pound became a Fascist (and was later imprisoned by the

Allies). Picasso had left-wing leanings (see his famous 1937 painting, condemning
Franco’s brutal bombing of Guernica).

Modernists groups, such as the Italian Futurists (who had links with Italian fascism)
and the Dadaists, liked to flamboyantly announce themselves by publishing self-