Fountain

Fountain is a readymade sculpture produced by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, consisting of a porcelain urinal signed "R.Mutt". Of all the artworks in this series of readymades, Fountain is perhaps the best known because the symbolic meaning of the toilet takes the conceptual challenge posed by the readymades to their most visceral extreme.

Existing objects taken from real life and modified or re-contextualized to function as works of art.

Duchamp purchased the urinal from a plumbing supplier at 118 Fifth Avenue, New York (J.L. Mott Ironwork Company). By turning it on its side and placing it on a pedestal, he altered the viewer's perception of this familiar manufactured object. With his signature, he undermined traditional notions of craftsmanship and authorship, and distorted conventional rules regarding the value and definition of art. He also challenged the way art galleries and institutions deemed it their prerogative to decide what art was and was not.