[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
We're at SFMOMA and we're looking
at a Marcel Duchamp. This is Fountain, which he
originally made in 1917, but which he remade in 1964. DR. BETH HARRIS: The
original was gone. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Thrown
away, or who knows what. DR. BETH HARRIS: So
this is a small series that was made in 1964, after
that original work of 1917. And he oversaw the
making of this. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
I think we need to be really careful
with the word making. [LAUGHTER] What Duchamp did, of course,
is he went to a plumbing supply house-- it was called Mott--
and purchased this and-- DR. BETH HARRIS: OK,
so he didn't make it. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Right. So he made it as a work of art. Through the alchemy of the
artist, transformed this. DR. BETH HARRIS: He turned
the urinal on its side and signed it R.
Mott and dated it. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And submitted it to an art exhibition
for a new group that he was a
founding member of, the American Society
for Independent Artists. And their notion was that
the juried exhibition that was prevalent in
the United States in New York at this time--
remember, Duchamp had just come over from Paris-- was,
in fact, a real problem, because the jury always selected
the traditional work that they were associated with. And this new group wanted to
bring in new possibilities. DR. BETH HARRIS: Right. So they were supposed to accept
every work that was submitted, but they rejected this one. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Well,
I think he was really pushing the boundary there. DR. BETH HARRIS: He submitted
it as sculpture, which, to me, is even more remarkable,
because when you think about sculpture, it has
an even more monumental-- DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And grand tradition-- DR. BETH HARRIS:
--heroic tradition even than painting, to take this
urinal and turn it on its side. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Some art historians have dealt with this
in the most absurd way, talking about its formal
qualities with its shiny-- DR. BETH HARRIS: Its curves-- DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
--porcelain surface. But it's a urinal,
although it is transformed. And this is, of course, what
Duchamp called a "readymade." DR. BETH HARRIS: Well, you
used the word alchemy before. And I think that that's an
interesting word, because one of the ways we can
think about what art is, is a kind of transformation
of ordinary materials into something really
wonderful that transports us and that makes us see
things in a new way. And though he didn't
make anything, he is asking us to see
the urinal in a new way. Not necessarily as
an aesthetic object, but to make us ask the
philosophical questions about what art it is and
what the artist does. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But he
separates craftsmanship and its relationship
to aesthetic enjoyment and to the profundity
of a work of art. Just absolutely throwing
it out the window. DR. BETH HARRIS: That's
the philosophical question he wants to open
up-- does art have to be made by the
hand of the artist. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And of course he's doing it in the most absurd way
by putting a urinal forward, calling it Fountain. DR. BETH HARRIS: So what is art? Is it the idea? Is it the concept? Can an artist just have the
idea and not make the object? DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Can art be
pure philosophy, pure theory? DR. BETH HARRIS: Exactly. [MUSIC PLAYING]