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mfc-michèle didier
Sep 11,
2015 - Jan 1, 2017
Fountain,
the most controversial artwork in modern art history, didn’t exist for a very
long time. Rejected at the Salon des artistes indépendants in 1917, it
disappeared the same year, after being shown during a short time at Alfred
Stieglitz’ gallery. In fact, the original artwork has become famous thanks to
the photographic reproduction Alfred Stieglitz made before its disappearance.
It’s this same image that was used to make the replicas* under Marcel Duchamp’s
supervision, in 1964.
“No one has
ever looked at art. Make artworks that are supposed to be directly reproduced
into magazines. As far as we know artworks thanks to their reproductions, we
should only conceive artworks for reproduction. Remove the intermediaries in
art.”**
This «
reminder » formulated by John Baldessari appears to be absolutely pertinent in
regards to the posterity of Marcel Duchamp urinal, which, despite its
disappearance, has still become one of art history most important masterworks.
It is not
by chance that in 2008 Saâdane Afif decided to make Fountain the object of a
very special collection – a collection of all the publications in which the
famous ready-made has been reproduced.
The
Fountain Archives consist thus of a multitude of torn pages on which appears
the reproduction of Fountain, each framed individually. Because of the
repetition of this motive, the complete series becomes a new artwork on its
own, of a contemporary view on how art history and myths of art are created.
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