As I promised here is the second clue to Barrio's work: Marcel Duchamp's "The Fountain". It's a urinal turned upside down and signed R. Mutt that Duchamp conceived for a show promoting avant-garde art. It was a shock and the piece was taken away from the exhibition. Only in the sixties the work was accepted as art but it still provokes controversy. Duchamp has also took other objects from daily life and by adding something or not he did what he named "ready-made".
"Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view - and created a new thought for that object."This is what was published at "The Blind Man" in a defense of Duchamp's work. In 2004 some people was shocked again:
December,1, 2004 "Marcel Duchamp's Fountain came top of a poll of 500 art experts in the run-up to this year's Turner Prize which takes place on Monday. Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) was second, with Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych from 1962 coming third. Duchamp shocked the art establishment when he took the urinal, signed it and put it on display" (BBC article here)It's amazing that it still provokes controversies although thare are many articles and books written about Duchamp's ready-mades. We will see others.
