WILLIAM DENTON

We finish volume twelve with a third work by Marcel Duchamp, the greatest artist of the twentieth century. This is Fountain, which we heard in volume six number one (the recording we will hear again now) and volume six number two. Fountain was selected in 2004 in a poll of 500 British art experts as the greatest art work of the twentieth century. That is in spite of the fact that it was never exhibited and the original was lost... In 1917 Duchamp was living in New York and was head of the hanging committee for the first exhibition of the newly formed Society of Independent Artists. The rule was that any member of the Society could exhibit two works. About a week before the show, Duchamp bought what he would call Fountain in the J.L. Mott Iron Works on Fifth Avenue. He submitted it pseudonymously under the name R. Mutt, along with the required membership and entry fees. It was rejected. There was an enormous controversy. Duchamp, without then admitting he was behind it, resigned his..