ON READY-MADES

Marcel Duchamp

This is not for your enjoyment.

As early as 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn.

A few months later I bought a cheap reproduction of a winter evening landscape, which I called Pharmacy after adding two small dots, one red and one yellow, in the horizon.

This is not for aesthetic contemplation.

In New York in 1915 I bought at a hardware store a snow shovel on which I wrote in advance of the broken arm.

It was around that time that the word "ready-made" came to my mind to designate this form of manifestation.

A point that I want very much to establish is that the choice of these "ready-mades" was never dictated by aesthetic delectation.

The choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with a total absence of good or bad taste ... in fact a complete anaesthesia.

One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the "ready-made."

That sentence, instead of describing the object like a title, was meant to carry the mind of the spectator toward other regions, more verbal.

This is antinomy, not art.

Sometimes I would add a graphic detail of presentation which, in order to satisfy my craving for alliterations, would be called ready-made-aided.

At another time, wanting to expose the basic antinomy between art and "ready-mades" I imagined a reciprocal ready-made: use a Rembrandt as an ironing board!

I realized very soon the danger of repeating indiscriminately this form of expression and decided to limit the production of "ready-mades" to a small number yearly. I was aware at that time that, for the spectator even more than for the artist, art is a habit-forming drug and I wanted to protect my "ready-mades" against such a contamination.

Throw this away.

Another aspect of the "ready-made" is its lack of uniqueness ... the replica of a "ready-made" delivering the same message, in fact nearly every one of the "ready-mades" existing today is not an original in the conventional sense.

Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral.

A final remark to this vicious circle:

Since the tubes of paint used by an artist are manufactured and ready-made products we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are ready-made aided.