If you have ever visited the Centre Pompidou, you may have had the opportunity to observe a urinal exposed in a room. Marcel Duchamp's mythical work, La Fontaine marks the birth of conceptual art. Even today, more than a century after its creation, the work continues to provoke many reactions. While some say it's genius, others think it's a real joke. Well, imagine that it's a bit of both. Here is the decryption of this mysterious La Fontaine.
The birth of La Fontaine
The story of La Fontaine begins in April 1917 when Marcel Duchamp went to a plumbing store of the company J.L Mott Iron Works, New York, to buy an industrial urinal. By placing it upside down, Marcel Duchamp transforms this simple urinal into a fountain, thus giving birth to the deliberately poetic title, La Fontaine. He then affixes a signature with black paint: "R. Mutt", a very mysterious pseudonym, which has caused a lot of ink to flow. If everyone attests that the name "Mutt" is a nod to the name of the urinal society "Mott", the hypothesis that the pseudonym hides the English meaning of the word "mutt" i.e. "clebard", "idiot" and by extension "bastard art" remains uncertain. Marcel Duchamp, himself, has left the hypothesis that "Mutt" is, in reality, a male pseudonym of one of his friends, the writer Louise Norton. Finally, the initials R.M. would stand for "Ready-made". Simply.
"It's not a work of art" says the Society of Independent Artists
It was on the occasion of the first Salon of the Society of Independent Artists, in New York, that Marcel Duchamp decided to send his work. Founded in 1916, the SIA (or in English Society of Independent Artists, SIA) opposes the domination of the official Salons. The essence of this Society is to accept all artists and not to refuse any work, even for simple "aesthetic reasons". Walter Arensberg, a friend of Marcel Duchamp and Marcel Duchamp, himself, belong to the SIA, as founding members. Thus, all the parameters are, a priori, met for La Fontaine to enter the world of art, on the occasion of this first Salon.
Except that in reality, the work, under an unknown pseudonym, will be purely and simply, refused. La Fontaine destabilizes. It is then decried as "a vulgar and immoral object", "a sanitary apparatus", or a hoax. The reasons for refusal are numerous and demonstrate that the ideal advocated by the Society is an aporia. The ploy set up by Marcel Duchamp is a real success. Indeed, it makes it possible to question the foundations of the AIS , which are prematurely weakened. Following this refusal, Marcel Duchamp resigned from the committee, without revealing his link with La Fontaine.
Towards a perfectly orchestrated staging
In this perspective, the question you can already ask yourself is the following: how does La Fontaine , refused from the Salon, become a work of art? If we know this work today, it is thanks to Marcel Duchamp, who showed great ingenuity. While the work remained out of sight, behind a partition during the Salon, Marcel Duchamp counter-attacked. It is in this perspective that he creates a satirical magazine The Blind Man, with the complicity of Henri-Pierre Roché (writer and collector of modern art) and Beatrice Wood (American painter). The creation of this magazine is an opportunity for the artist to question the true value of a work of art, while defending the famous R. Mutt. Thus, by defending it, Marcel Duchamp places the conception of an art prevailing over creation. This is the birth of conceptual art.
In this magazine, writer Louise Norton devotes an entire article to the urinal. This article, entitled The Buddha in the Bathroom, is accompanied by a photograph by gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz who places La Fontaine in front of Marsden Hartley' s painting The Warriors . This staging is not hazardous. Indeed, by confronting La Fontaine with a painting, she then seizes the status that the Salon had denied her, namely that of a work of art. In this perspective, it is thanks to the collaboration of these illustrious actors of the art world, the artistic review and the photographic staging that La Fontaine is definitively part of the history of art.
The future of Marcel Duchamp's La Fontaine
After remaining in the shadow of the Salon, La Fontaine was claimed by the collector and gallery owner, Alfred Stieglitz, at the request of his friend Marcel Duchamp. Faced with the absence of the work, the gallery owner caused a scandal and pretended to buy the work. This scandal is intended to draw attention to the work. Subsequently, Alfred Stieglitz exhibited the object in his New York gallery, under the title Madonna of the Bathromm, an eminently provocative title. During this exhibition, the urinal was bought by Walter Arensberg, an American poet and patron of the arts. It is with this acquisition that we lose track of La Fontaine. Stored, destroyed, lost, found or stolen, legend has it that the work was accidentally broken during a move by Walter Arensberg. Indeed, the movers would not have grasped at all the artistic dimension of this industrial urinal.
Therefore, you can imagine that La Fontaine , exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, is not the original work. It is a simple replica, made in 1964, under the direction of Marcel Duchamp. Today, we have eleven other replicas, including one that was sold to a Greek collector, Dimitri Daskalopoulos, in 1999, for the sum of 1.6 million euros.
A work by Marcel Duchamp, really?
It was not until the 1950s that Marcel Duchamp claimed the paternity of La Fontaine. But this authorship is questioned by art historians Julian Spalding and Glyn Thompson in 2014. La Fontaine is, in reality, the work of a woman. Two arguments support this thesis. The first argument concerns the urinal model. Indeed, this model does not correspond to any model sold in the store where the artist claims to have obtained it. Could this be a clue that the artist lied to us?
The second argument is highlighted by Marcel Duchamp, in a letter sent on April 11, 1917, two days after the rejection of the work. Writing to his sister, the artist explains that he received the object from a friend, namely Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Muse of the New York Dada movement, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven became known for her sculptures in lead pipes, such as the sculpture God, in 1917. Moreover, when we compare the handwriting of the nicknamed "Dada Baroness" to the signature "R.Mutt", the two writings seem strangely similar. In this sense, the theory supported by the two art historians seems quite plausible.
La Fontaine, a work by Marcel Duchamp? Or Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven? Is this a serious and true hypothesis? Or a staging on the part of Marcel Duchamp, aimed at blurring the tracks? The choice is yours… After all, if we quote Marcel Duchamp, isn't a ready-made "a work without an artist"?
