Fountain (Duchamp)

Fountain is an art product created by Marcel Duchamp at the early 20th century. This work basically is a porcelain urinal, but get tagged and named as Fountain by Duchamp. Originally, when Duchamp first submitted the urinal as an art product, it got rejected by the committee, even though the rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee.[1] However, it was presented at an art studio lastly.

Fountain, as a special art piece, receives lots of certainties and questions from the society. The basic idea of this art piece definitely contacts with postmodernism by using sarcasm and humor. First, people usually think that art is created by skills. However, the appearance of Fountain challenges the common idea of art by using a ridiculous object, an urinal, directly, which expresses one of the main thoughts of postmodernism: nothing is absolute. Moreover, it cuts the traditional connection between art and value, and creates conceptual art. A humorous thought remarks deeply in the history of postmodern era and actually makes modern people consider deeply.