Talk:Fountain (Duchamp)

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HOW many degrees?

180, not 90, shurely? -- A.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.186.140 (talk) 21:21, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and "around it's axis" seems weird as well. Lisiate (talk) 08:26, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think they really do mean 90 degrees. What was horizontal (the basin that one pisses into) is now vertical, and what was vertical (the pipe that the water drops into it through) is now horizontal, pointing to the viewer of the photo. So if it started out pointing backwards, it would rotate 90 degrees to get to the displayed pointing-upwards state, through a horizontal axis passing from left to right. But that's a weird choice of starting position. From the standard starting position that one would see in a restroom, to get to the displayed position, one would instead have a 180 degree rotation, through a diagonal axis pointing towards the viewer and upward. As you say, it's odd to call that diagonal "its axis". —David Eppstein (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The piece is rotated exactly 90 degrees on an axis. That is what the sources say. The rotation occurs (to a close approximation) in the line of sight (as pictured in the 1917 photo). Because the object is 3-dimensional, there is no preferred frame of reference. The object is meant to be seen from all sides. Coldcreation (talk) 08:53, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The piece does not have an axis of symmetry. It has a plane of symmetry, reflecting through which would produce no change to the image. Your description of the rotation is plainly false, as anyone with any ability at 3d visualization can plainly see. And your "The rotational symmetry referring to 90 degrees is a symmetry with respect to some (not all) rotations in m-dimensional space." comes across as meaningless buzzword salad. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I made this edit. Perhaps this is acceptable. Bus stop (talk) 17:51, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad. I added to it. There are multiple sources for this. Coldcreation (talk) 23:14, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You added back clearly false claims that do more to cast doubt on the reliability of their source than they do to clarify the shape and orientation of the piece. As I just wrote in my edit summary, "If you found a published source saying "it was painted cherry red" would you state it as factual in the article despite the obvious contradiction with the photo? This is equally egregiously false." —David Eppstein (talk) 23:32, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What do you disagree with, that it was rotated 90 degrees, or that it was rotated on its axis? (Or both?) Coldcreation (talk) 23:37, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Both. There is no symmetry axis, so the phrase "its axis" is completely meaningless. And it was rotated 180 degrees from its normal position, not 90, a fact that should be obvious by examining the photo. So the version you are edit-warring to include manages to cram two falsehoods into a single sentence. If the art historians who wrote the sources write clearly counterfactual claims, it doesn't mean we have to follow them. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The rotation is exactly ninety degrees from its functional position. The axis is an imaginary line about which the urinal was rotated. Nothing more, nothing less. Coldcreation (talk) 00:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

David Eppstein—what is the relationship between a wall and a floor? The answer is 90 degrees. The plumbing fixture is normally mounted on a wall. The side that is normally attached to the wall can be called the "back" of the plumbing fixture, which is to say that the back of the fixture is in the same orientation as a wall. In its new orientation as a Duchampian work of art, the "back" of the fixture is in the same orientation as the floor. The plumbing fixture was reorientated by the same number of degrees as that which distinguishes a wall from a floor. That number would be 90 degrees. Here is a good image of a protractor. Bus stop (talk) 00:18, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The wall and the floor are indeed at 90 degrees to each other. And the plane of the basin of the sculpture in its displayed position is at 90 degrees from the plane of the basin in its normal position. That DOES NOT MEAN that the two positions can be reached from each other by a 90 degree rotation. Look, why don't you try explaining to me (1) what line in space, in the space of the Stieglitz photo, is the one that it was rotated through, (2) in what sense you think this line can reasonably be described as a "symmetry axis", and (3) what is the result of rotating the sculpture by 90 degrees around that line? Or, if you are not one of those people comfortable with rotating 3d objects in your imagination (and there's no shame in that) then perhaps you should leave the conversation to those who are. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are possible rotations of 90 degrees that would not result in orientation seen in the photograph in the article. But there is one rotation of 90 degrees that would result in the orientation seen in the photograph. Would you agree? Bus stop (talk) 00:39, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've posed the question here. Bus stop (talk) 00:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of 90 degree rotations that would result in the one seen in the photograph. For instance if you were looking at it from the side, and rotated it through a vertical axis, you would get a front-on view like the one in the photograph. Or if it were tilted on its side, and you rotated it through an axis running from your eye to the center of the object, it could be oriented to be upright again. However, there is no 90 degree rotation that changes the front-on view that you see in the photograph into a view with the basin level and pointing towards you, ready for you to piss into it, nor is there one that reverses that change. To get between those two views, you have to rotate 180 degrees, through a diagonal axis. (Or alternatively you could reflect through a diagonal plane. Or if you really really like coordinate axes rather than diagonal axes, you could rotate 180 degrees through a vertical axis, and then another 90 degrees through a horizontal axis in the plane of the photo.) —David Eppstein (talk) 00:47, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We can walk around this sculpture. The photograph is showing one view. We don't place any special importance on the view of the work seen in the photograph. When we speak of the number of degrees it has been rotated, we disregard the various vantage points from which the work can be viewed or photographed. Bus stop (talk) 01:21, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you usually look at paintings from the back side? Or busts — do you usually pay particular attention to the back of the head? In fact, in this case it would not be possible to view the same object from the opposite side, because there's a big painting blocking the view. And how many restrooms have you been in that allow you to walk all the way around each urinal? To continue the painted red analogy, you are saying "but maybe if I look at it through sufficiently rose-tinted glasses it might be true". Maybe, but if pigs had wings they could fly. That doesn't make them able to fly now, it doesn't make it red now, and it doesn't make the normal angle of the urinal as you would use it and the angle as displayed to viewers be 90 degrees rotated from each other. It is not something that could become true if you squint hard enough, it was just a mistake by some non-geometers that non-geometers are continuing to push here because they don't see how mistaken it is. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:30, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: There is one axis about which the object is rotated ninety degrees. Art historians are correct. (Like a coffee cup placed on its side). Coldcreation (talk) 07:06, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And what line in space, as viewed from the viewpoint of Stieglitz's photo, is that axis, pray tell? (Also, please do not alter previously-replied-to-comments, as you just did, to make the replies nonsensical. Your previous posts said that the axis was the (nonexistent) "axis of symmetry".) —David Eppstein (talk) 07:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: I correct my previous post. It is not an axis of symmetry. An axis of rotation is located on the far side, as viewed in the 1917 photo, just under the small holes. The line is touching the base of the object (at one point), is parallel to the floor, parallel to the screw holes, extending left and right. This is the most obvious axis to rotate the urinal 90 degrees, since the object can be pivoted on a point. There exist many more (on the plane of the top of the base, parallel to the above mentioned axis). In fact, there exists an infinite number of axes, all parallel to this line (on and off the plane). See Axis–angle representation. Art historians are correct indeed. Coldcreation (talk) 07:47, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, the left-right horizontal axis. Now imagine that as the axis of a wheel, and rotate the wheel 90 degrees in either direction (the direction that, for a wheel of a vehicle, would take you forward or backward). If you rotate from the position of the Stieglitz photo 90 degrees in the backward direction, the basin is facing down and you would have to piss up to use it. If you rotate 90 degrees in the forward direction, there is a wall on which the urinal is mounted, separating you from it — you have gone into the wrong restroom.* In neither case do you get a urinal in its normal orientation, facing you, and by the same reasoning if you start from the urinal in its normal orientation you won't get what you see in the photo. You could get the photo from a normally oriented urinal by two steps: rotate 180 degrees around a vertical axis, and then turn the wheel 90 degrees (or vice versa) but that's not a single rotation. You could walk around to the back side of the urinal, rotating yourself around that same vertical axis instead of it, and then rotate it, but sgain that's not just a single step. Or, you could get it in one step, by a single rotation, of 180 degrees through an axis of symmetry that extends diagonally upwards from the urinal to above your head. But not in a single step by a 90 degree rotation. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

* or maybe the right restroom, if you are the female artist whose credit Duchamp stole... I assume we're not going to take this debate as evidence for the "a woman did it" theory.

As explained above, there exist an infinite number of axes about which Fountain can be rotated 90 degrees that place it in an upright (functional) position. For the proofs, see Axis–angle representation. Coldcreation (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Starting from random positions that aren't its normal position, sure. To get from the normal position to the photo position, no. And if you think the linked article explains that issue, you are wrong. It describes the three-dimensional space of all possible rotations (two dimensions on the unit sphere for the axis, one for the rotation angle) but it does not say that it's possible for more than one element of that space to produce the same effect. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In another way, there exist an infinite number of axes about which Fountain can be rotated 90 degrees from its upright (functional) position, to the position chosen by Marcel Duchamp. Art historians are correct. Coldcreation (talk) 08:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

David Eppstein—the urinal can be viewed in a "three-quarter view" or "full-face view". Without knowing the starting point or the ending point as concerns these two possible views, how can you calculate that a reorientation of 180 degrees has taken place? Bus stop (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Upright" is not the same as "functional". There are an infinite number of upright orientations that are not functional, i.e., any rotation around a vertical axis that leaves the device facing away from the user.

Either go all out and specify a full set of Euler angles, or just discard the pseudo-precision and make the meaningful statement that he laid it on its back so that the urine-collecting surface faced forward. XOR'easter (talk) 14:56, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the language "laid it on its back" but not with the language "so that the urine-collecting surface faced forward". It can also be viewed in "three-quarter view", in which case the "urine-collecting surface" is not facing directly forward. Bus stop (talk) 15:12, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the way it has been described by art historians; the object was rotated 90 degrees from its otherwise functional position (see references within the article, and many more in the relevant literature). Note, this object, as many 3-dimensional sculptures, are meant to be seen from a variety of angles, placed in such a way that the viewer can walk around the artwork. The 1917 photo is not a special or preferred frame of reference. Coldcreation (talk) 16:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an interesting find, by a professor of art history at the University of Iowa, Craig Adcock:

A central part of the Fountain's geometry is its inversion—a rotation that changes it from a drain into a fountain. Moreover, its 90° rotation can be taken as a reference to the flipflops involved in four-dimensional rotation. As we have seen, such a rotation through the fourth dimension results in a left-right reversal and an inside–outside transformation. If an object such as the Fountain were so rotated, it would undergo, at least in metaphorical terms, a concavity-convexity transposition. [...] the Fountain can only be rotated ninety degrees; it cannot take a full demi-tour through the fourth dimension and thereby have its "female" concavity transformed into "male" convexity. (Source: Adcock, Craig. Duchamp's Eroticism: A Mathematical Analysis, Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987): 149-167).

Coldcreation (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so you've found more art historians who think that geometry is like artspeak — if you string together words in an evocative way you get something usable as a description. But that's not how geometry actually works, and it's not actually meaningful. Look, since you're so stubborn at believing what the books say instead of the clear evidence of your eyes, here's another conceptual proof that the rotation can only be 180 degrees (no matter how many dimensions you use). Normally, a urinal has its basin level, on its bottom plane, and its backsplash vertical, on its rear plane, right? But this sculpture has the backsplash where the basin should be and the basin where the backsplash should be. They have swapped places. If you repeated the same transformation that you used to get it into that position (whatever that transformation is) they would swap places again, and be back to their starting point. But the only rotations with the property that you can repeat them twice and get back to your starting point are the 180 degree rotations. If you use a 90 degree rotation, you would have to repeat it four times to return to your starting point. (Also, the only rotations through higher dimensions that end up back in the same 3d space are the 180 degree rotations or the rotations that have 3d space as their axis and leave it unchanged.) —David Eppstein (talk) 17:14, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing but WP:OR: Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. No reliable source can be found that backs up what you write, relative to this artwork. Coldcreation (talk) 17:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sources that are mathematically incorrect cannot be considered reliable for the purposes of mathematical statements, whatever their merits might be in other regards. For example, Adcock (1987) says, "Rotation is a way of transforming

n

-dimensional objects into

(n+1)

-dimensional objects" (p. 159), which is nonsensical as written. If I have a piece of paper here on my desk and I draw a circle upon it, and then I rotate that piece of paper so that it is vertical, the circle remains a circle. The 2-dimensional stays 2-dimensional. One could take the union of all the rotated copies of a flat shape to form a solid of revolution, but then there is nothing special about rotation here: a mundane translation works just as well (for example, the cylinder produced by vertically translating the rim in basketball). Moreover, whatever it means to "metaphorically" exchange "'female' concavity" with "'male' convexity", it is not the case that a four-dimensional rotation turns a convex body into a concave one or vice versa. Rotations are linear transformations and convexity-preserving. (Given points

x

and

y

, and a rotation

R

, the image under

R

of a convex combination

\lambda x+(1-\lambda )y

is

\lambda Rx+(1-\lambda )Ry

, which is a convex combination of the images under

R

of

x

and

y

.) Adcock's Figure 2 (which he reproduces from a 1903 book by Esprit Jouffret) actually illustrates this: a triangle is mapped to a triangle, and a tetrahedron to a tetrahedron. In both cases, the convex hull of a set of vertices becomes the convex hull of a new set of vertices. XOR'easter (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Art historians are disregarding the vantage point of the viewer. Art historians are not concerned that a urinating person stands "in front" of the object. Art historians are not concerned that museum-goers enjoy the same view Stieglitz seems to enjoy. Art historians disregard the vantage point of the viewer. Art historians address the simplest possible reorientation to describe the artist's reorientation of the object. This is entirely acceptable because everyone reading this knows that a three-dimensional object can potentially be viewed from 360 degrees by walking around it and that to do so human beings commonly walk on floors which in turn are commonly oriented horizontally. The notion that the reorientation is anything other than 90 degrees is wrong unless we specify a starting perspective and an ending perspective. As Coldcreation has correctly pointed out the perspective of Stieglitz is not special in any way. And as I have already said, there are "three-quarter views" that are perfectly acceptable. Even a urinal mounted in a wall in its normal position can be viewed in "three-quarter view". Art historians are quite correctly disregarding the varying standard perspectives on this object. In colloquial speech the object has been reoriented by 90 degrees. Colloquial speech attributes nothing special to either the perspectives of urinating men or throngs of museum-goers when describing Duchamp's reorientation of the object. Bus stop (talk) 18:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@XOR'easter: Though interesting, there is nothing about convexity in the Wikipedia Fountain article. Nor is there anything mathematically incorrect. This object was rotated 90 degrees, from its intended position (mounted on a wall), to a position lying flat on a base. Coldcreation (talk) 18:14, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A citation to an article full of pseudomathematics is not good practice for an encyclopedia. And if "colloquial speech" is so important, why not just say that the object was laid flat on its base? Or, as the article currently states, "reoriented with its basin in the position of its backsplash and vice versa" — a statement which nicely characterizes the transformation without reference to any preferred vantage point. Why is a number even necessary? XOR'easter (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...because the 90 degree rotation (as mentioned in the article main text) is precisely what multiple reliable sources correctly state. Coldcreation (talk) 18:35, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If we want to avoid the perceived issue that some are pointing to we could use the wording "In Duchamp's presentation the urinal's orientation was altered from its usual positioning." A sighted person would view the Stieglitz photo and understand the nature of the reorientation. Unfortunately the wording would fail to inform the sight-impaired of the reorientation the object has undergone in becoming an art object. XOR'easter makes a good suggestion: "why not just say that the object was laid flat on its base?" Bus stop (talk) 18:43, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Laid flat on its wall-plate, maybe. The surface it was laid flat on is not normally its base (bottom surface). The non-geometric part of Coldcreation's 4d quote, about the inversion of female to male (caused by the change of orientation of the down-pipe to horizontal), may also be worth mentioning. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I like "laid flat on its wall-plate". XOR'easter (talk) 19:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "laid flat on its wall-plate" is good. Bus stop (talk) 19:08, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, in the lead it is written: "In Duchamp's presentation the urinal's orientation was altered from its usual positioning." That is fine for the lead. In the main body: "reoriented it 90 degrees from its originally intended position of use"... per references. Fine! Coldcreation (talk) 19:11, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, that is false. It does not become any more true just because you can find art historians who think that geometry is a form of mysticism where you can write anything you want and make it become true. We do not need to continue propagating falsehoods in the encyclopedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A right angle is equal to 90 degrees.

Coldcreation (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that image provides an intelligent contribution to the subject? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "wall-plate", first on the vertical line, is rotated to lay flat on the horizontal line. Coldcreation (talk) 19:47, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: What you propose, 180 degree rotation, gives this:

Coldcreation (talk) 19:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's a 180-degree rotation through a horizontal axis, extending towards the viewer from the urinal. The rotation I'm discussing is the one through a diagonal axis, extending upward from the urinal towards a point above the viewer. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:57, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense WP:OR. Coldcreation (talk) 20:01, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious to anyone with eyes to see. We don't need sources to write that 1+1=2 or that the night sky is dark or that the moon is not made of green cheese. The diagonal axis is (not coincidentally) exactly halfway between the vertical line that the wallplate starts on and the horizontal line that it ends on. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck finding a reliable source for your WP:OR. Coldcreation (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be happy enough if we get the falsehoods that you continue to insist on despite their falsehood eradicated from the article. As for finding reliable sources, the tried-and-tested method for what to do when the claims one wants to source have no reference is to publish an article containing them and then use it. Your intransigence tempts me to try it in this case, but that might be more effort than I'd want to put into such a small matter. (Then again, academics have already put in a lot of effort into minor details of the geometry of art; see e.g. the debate over the shape of the polyhedron in Dürer's Melancholia.) —David Eppstein (talk) 20:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The animation is obviously not the rotation that David Eppstein has described, starting with his very first comment in this section. I mean, really obviously. XOR'easter (talk) 20:20, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I found a couple of published sources for the 180 degree rotation, by the way:

Sarıkartal, Zekiye; Kılıç, Veysel (2016), "What Do Images Mean in Visual Semiotics?", DergiPark: Istanbul Aydın University Journal of Fine Arts Faculty, 2, Istanbul Aydin University: 1–13, he also rotated the form 180 degrees and mounted it on a pedestal
Andina, Tiziana (November 2017), "Exemplarity in Contemporary Arts", Law & Literature: 1–13, doi:10.1080/1535685x.2017.1379190, the urinal Fountain was exhibited rotated by 180 degrees

—David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also

D'Silva, Eliot (2010-03-02). "Arts Comment: In defence of modern art". Varsity. Retrieved 2018-11-23. Consisting of a readymade urinal purchased from Fifth Avenue's J. L. Mott Iron Works, rotated 180 degrees, and tagged with a pseudonym

XOR'easter (talk) 00:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I also turned up an example of what would appear to be a perfectly reliable source (a book from Oxford University Press by Bruce Lincoln) that just says the urinal was exhibited "upside down". I'm a bit fond of the conclusion, actually:

And for all that inversion can be an effective instrument of agitation, skillful use of which can prompt significant reform (as in the story of Menenius Agrippa) or radical upheaval (as with Duchamp's Fountain), dominant orders are capable of employing their own symbolic inversions to defend against just such threats. To be sure it is a powerful act to turn the world upside down, but a simple 180-degree rotation is not difficult to undo. An order twice inverted is an order restored, perhaps even strengthened as a result of the exercise.

Lincoln, Bruce (1992). Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195360004. OCLC 730667787.

XOR'easter (talk) 00:52, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notice for lurkers and future historians specializing in Wikipedia discussion pages, this topic now has a break-off section, 90° rotation, two sections below Randy Kryn (talk) 14:53, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Coming in late, I haven't tried to read the whole mess.) It seems to me that the question of degrees and axes is meaningless unless we know

the orientation of the wall on which the urinal was (or would have been) mounted, and
the orientation of the display,

in the (incidentally rotating) reference frame of the Earth. Is either known? I doubt it. Therefore,

why not forget about formal rotations and simply say that the urinal is placed on its back? —Tamfang (talk) 05:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lisiate, David Eppstein, Coldcreation, Bus stop, XOR'easter, Randy Kryn, and Tamfang: Here is a simple diagram presenting how one can turn an urinal into the Fountain by 90° or 180° rotation (images in the upper and the lower row, respectively) with appropriate choice of the rotation axis (fat red lines).

Best regards, CiaPan (talk) 14:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lisiate, David Eppstein, Coldcreation, Bus stop, XOR'easter, Randy Kryn, and Tamfang: One can possibly do it with any intermediate angle of rotation – the middle row of an updated image shows an example for 120°. --CiaPan (talk) 16:44, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, that went further than I'd expected. Thanks everyone for clearing that up. (Personally I think 'tipped on it's back' would be how I'd describe it). Lisiate (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How position contributes to the artwork

Thank you! This IS great fun for me, especially, since you forgo specifying any axes, angles and (fix)points of rotation. I think it has even esthetic appeal, but I, on my side, forgo uttering any artistic valuation. Purgy (talk) 07:56, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fun image, but its choice of using only rotations through axes perpendicular to the viewplane shows that he is still mired in the Cartesian orthogonal worldview. (Or maybe it's just much easier to rotate images than 3d models.) —David Eppstein (talk) 16:31, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect on the silly worldview comment. I am currently working on another version of Fountain embedded in a spherically symmetric general relativistic four-dimensional globally hyperbolic pseudo-Riemannian spacetime manifold with temporal evolution in accord with the laws of physics and multiple viewpoints generated by 3-D software. Coldcreation (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf E. Kuenzli states, in Dada and Surrealist Film (1996), after describing how various readymades are presented or displayed: "This decontextualization of the object's functional place draws attention to the creation of its artistic meaning by the choice of the setting and positioning ascribed to the object." He goes on to explain the importance of naming the object (ascribing a title). At least three factors came into play: the choice of object, the title, and how it was modified, if at all, from its 'normal' position or location. By virtue of placing a urinal on a pedestal in an art exhibition, the illusion of an artwork was created. Rudolf E. Kuenzli, Dada and Surrealist Film, MIT Press, 1996, p. 47. Coldcreation (talk) 08:40, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Much applause and am glad to see your Fountain Descending a Staircase, No. 1. If this has never been done before it deserves publication in some form. The entire discussion is worth the price of admission for this creation alone. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find, at least on Google, any other mention of Fountain Descending a Staircase, so if it's been done before (as a photo, painting, cartoon, even a mention) it's not showing up. Can others try to find a previous mention, thanks. We may have seen the birth of a unique artistic combination of related iconic images, and again, Coldcreation, nice work. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But I think we are getting somewhere. The real question is: how does this relate to abstract expressionism? Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

jesus christ yall he just put it on its side, yall sound like the artist pharisees that wouldnt let him submit this stolen stolen idea in the first place — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotdurger (talk • contribs) 06:49, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Authorship again

DavidEppstein the most recent edits correcting the history are being removed by David Eppstein, who has removed other ones on this subject also. There is now conclusive proof that the work was created by F-L, including the letter from Duchamp himself and that she was using the alias Richard Mutt for some time before sending the work to Duchamp. Further the use of found objects was a key aspect of her work and not of Duchamps at the time. Eppstein states that this is a 'minority view amongst scholars'. It might have been once but, speaking as someone with connections to the arts, unlike Eppstein, the history has now moved on & wiki should reflect that. To rely only on past research, and research that was it has to be said from a patriarchal reading of the history, is highly problematic. The correct origins of the work are now part of academic curriculums, collections have adjusted their archives to reflect the origins and the majority view within the arts supports the facts around F-L's involvement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 21:48, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you are going to enter discussions of attribution, you might learn to spell people's names correctly. That aside, you will need more than unsupported assertions or emotional appeals to anti-patriarchy to make a convincing case for changing the article to state in Wikipedia's voice that the authorship is different. You can certainly find scholars who believe this theory (I tend to believe it myself, but I have no special expertise in this area so my view counts for nothing). But my searches show that, among over 800 Google Scholar results for this work published since 2019, only 39 of them even mention Freytag-Loringhoven. That does not seem like a majority view to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:19, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do let me know whose name I have not spelt correctly. I'm afraid the view that because a lot of papers claim Duchamp created the work is not reliable proof that he did either. Let me detail this; the view that Duchamp created it is based on zero evidence except for one story he told, later, that is seen aa a further attempt to 'play' with the works history (connecting it to a popular cartoon of the time). Art history is full of papers that discredit the work of female artists or fail to include them & that has to now be taken into account when looking for facts around any contested work. Duchamp has no history of working with found objects at the time, F-L did. Duchamp had no interest in plumbing objects at the time, F-L did, creating very similar works prior to fountain. Duchamp was not prevented from submitting to the exhibition as he was male & therefore had no need to use an alias, F-L was and therefore often submitted works using her alias of Richard Mutt. The work was sent to the exhibition from a city and a person with whom Duchamp had had no face-to-face contact with for sometime prior to it arriving. F-L on the other hand refers to her plumbing object works in correspondence prior to 1917. F-L's work 'God' serves as another part of the proof that she created fountain. Given that an alias was used and despite the fact that it was the one F-L had been using for some time, it is not 'history' to simply stick to one unsupported version when new evidence and a new reading of the history is established. Since the works first exhibition in 1917 there have been a large number of papers, books, articles on it of course but to continue to deny that they were created, and still are to some extent, within a culture that is based on patriarchal attitudes is not history but a refusal to accept the progression of it. Taking recent papers most are by students with a limited knowledge of the subject (overviews of Duchamp or Dada) but of the ones written by acknowledged experts on Duchamp and Dada all now accept that F-L created the work. User:JrFedit —Preceding undated comment added 06:35, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

please do stop removing edits that correct the problematic history of this piece. There is now conclusive proof that the piece was by F-L (see her page on wiki for other examples of her working with found objects, including items of plumping, prior to the exhibition of fountain). This is now the widely accepted origins of the work and academic texts are being updated, catalogues & archives in galleries corrected and curriculums changed. Arguments put forward state that there was no proof that F-L created the work but there is also no proof that Duchamp did either. There is however significant proof now that F-L did and as part of a series of works. A forthcoming biography will detail the research in full. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 05:56, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@JrFedit: New comments go at the bottom. Please sign your comments. And we can't base material here on supposed forthcoming material: we need actual publications that exist now. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I would include a link to this substantive discussion around fountain which contains numerous references to the work of established experts, galleries and friends of both artists. It needs to be included in the main page & I will try to do that but as any readers will see there is a lot that could be referenced. http://www.thejackdaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Duchamp-Fountain-II1.pdf User: JrFedit —Preceding undated comment added 11:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no consensus, either at Wikipedia or amongst art historians, that anyone other than M. Duchamp is the author of Fountain. Coldcreation (talk) 12:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just adding my voice to this: clearly there is no consensus in art history for this change and no consensus here on Wikipedia. JrFedit is edit warring and adding unsourced content. Even if it was sourced, it would be WP:UNDUE to change the article. At the most -- and we would need substantial sourcing -- we could add a short paragraph about the disputed authorship. If it was a settled matter as JrFedit claims, there would be lots of sources available. There are not. freshacconci (✉) 13:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, per JrFedit's last edit summary, "It should be noted also that the editor responsible has done this on lots of occasions on various posts where aspects of sexist distortion of art history have been corrected". It's not clear on which editor this refers to, but it is an attack. JrFedit also states in that summary: "discussions should take place on the talk page before disruptive removal of factual edits & citations" which is amusing, considering JrFedit's violation of WP:3RR. We are discussing it here. JrFedit themselves is adding the disputed content and the onus is on them to find consensus here before adding the text. I reported JrFedit after the fourth revert. freshacconci (✉) 13:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We had a well-attended Rfc on this very point in 2018, which concluded we should use the form people are reverting to. I'm not aware there has been anything much new since then, and while the wider consensus outside WP maybe on the move, it has a good way to go before we are likely to shift our position here. Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

in reply to the most recent comments above. I did cite an extensive article (9) which also references all of the key sources of fact and research on this matter. It is often hard to know who editors are of course so when comments like 'there is no consensus in the arts' it is not possible to know from what position they are speaking. It is now widely accepted that F-L was responsible for the work and galleries that own one of the later versions reference this in exhibitions. The attribution has been added to most of the major academic sources used in teaching this area of art. I note that editors mention an earlier consensus but also that none of them seem to want to discuss the additional research that either wasn't referenced at that time or has been published since. As such it does appear not that there is an attempt to ensure the page is factual but rather only that it maintains the assertion that it was created by Duchamp & even if some refuse to accept all of the facts as discussed in citation 9 there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and never has been, that proves Duchamp was responsible, save for one story he told some 40 years later and that is proved to be unreliable in said research. At the very least the page should now reflect the proof that the work is not by Duchamp. Of the 5 or so leading experts on Dada and Duchamp all accept that he did not originate the work. As I have stated already I would ask editors to read the research cited (9) and note all of the sources cited in it User: JrFedit —Preceding undated comment added 14:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ref. the comment from freshacconci about my comment on sexist distortion. It is actually himself that I am referring to as he has a history of removing corrective edits on the work of female artists. I note that he sees this as an attack but I would counter that by saying that denying female artists the recognition they deserve is an attack not only on said artists but on art history, and wiki itself. I have attempted, repeatedly, to discuss the various edits and pages with him but he refuses to do so in any detail. There is a growing concern in the arts that wiki is a site controlled by men who remove attempts to correct histories, including on subjects such as classical music and science where they're have been extensive wiki-editing events that have then seen their work removed without good reason. Again, the sources have been cited, and they have been removed. How can any consensus be arrived at when almost all of the research on this matter is ignored? I say 'almost all' because apart from some very old articles and books even most of the ones already cited on the page cast doubt on Duchamp and several argue that it was a work by F-L. User: JrFedit —Preceding undated comment added 14:41, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that while the desire to correct the historic exclusion of women is noble and important to Wikipedia, it must be done in a scholarly, specific, and sourced way, and follow the norms of Wikipedia. User: JrFedit is not doing that, and now has a track-record of making sloppy, unsourced changes to a number of pages – in the name of general causes – while reverting edits repeatedly by more senior editors, even after warnings. Further, I looked through the fairly marginal Jackdaw 'magazine' pdf they have provided above and it does not provide any more sourced information than that of Irene Gammel's well-known research of some years ago. I will also add that a number of the claims above about Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven's use of R. Mutt at any point as an alias or her use of plumbing (she collaborated with a man, Morton Livingston Schamberg, on one piece: God (sculpture)) are at the least new claims, with no sources. What we are seeing here is an attempt to impose the opinions of an individual over reliable research. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 21:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Additional non-sense: "Further the use of found objects was a key aspect of her work and not of Duchamps at the time." Perhaps take the time User: JrFedit to look through Wikipedia and the sources provided before asserting baseless claims. Duchamp had coined the term 'Ready Made' in 1915, two years prior to Fountain, and had 'made' Bicycle Wheel some 4 years prior. See Found_object for more. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hesperian Nguyen:  All I would add in reply here is that the Jackdaw article discussed a large number of sources and logistical facts that were not already part of the page. Further your comment about my edits on other pages continues to show that whatever ref’s are provided on edits the opinions of ‘more senior’ editors takes precedent even over artists themselves or the work of highly respected academics, foundations and in catalogue raisonne's . ‘Sloppy’, whilst a needlessly insulting word, I will admit that in the first edits I attempted on other pages it did take me a week or so to work out some of the methods used for inserting citations for example. The ref.’s to F-L using Richard Mutt as an alias are not new and are contained in numerous papers that have emerged since the expansion of research into her in the 1980’s. Duchamp himself mentions that she used the name ‘Richard’ in archived letters. The monograph on F-L’s work clearly shows that she was working with found objects for some years before Duchamp, and before he used the term ‘ready mades’ (the first use of this term by him in print is in a 1916 letter to his sister, as outlined in the MoMA archives however as another ref. mentioned below indicates he did not invent the term). As for sources various aspects of this are detailed in Gammel, Jones (Irrational Modernism) & Beagles, as well as in more recent papers available online. Rather than continuing to dismiss fact based research please read the detailed reply to this ongoing issue about the research on fountain at the end of these other comments to individual editors.

other comment (the user name is not visible to me for some reason); F-L’s use of found objects pre-dates that of Duchamp, not to mention that F-L is widely acknowledged to have been a significant influence on Duchamp and others involved in Dada. It had been part of her work in various forms throughout her activity in the arts. Other artists were also using found objects and the invention of ‘ready made’ as a term by Duchamp, and how it is being used here, is indicative of the problem of male artists, intentionally or not, colonising techniques by naming them and by having more access to profile than female artists. My comment ‘at the time’ refers to the time when F-L was using found objects.

David E;  edits by MelanieN and SerialNumber54129 occurred after my comments about male editors so I am unsure why they are included but it does seem obvious that there is an attempt to mislead by doing this. Much of your comment is classic gas lighting and does not take into account that I was referring to clearly patriarchal distortion of art history in general and how it is the basis for lots of wiki pages. I would add that whilst its often not possible to know whether any editor identifies as male, female or neither, some of the attitdes, across multiple pages, do tend to suggest an opposition to correcting patriarchal distortions of art history. It's possible that women could stand against that in a similar way but I doubt it.

yamla: its not that I failed on the talk page, its that none of the other editors discussed the research or the various points put forward when I commented. If you read through the talk page there is no discussion before that comment. What there is is defensive attacks that repeatedly refuse to indicate in depth knowledge of the range of research on the subject and merely dismiss what is now the widely accepted research. Rather than continuing to dismiss fact based research please read the detailed reply to this ongoing issue about the research on fountain at the end of these other comments to individual editors.

Basic points on Fountain and this ongoing issue of attribution; Not since the 1980’s, when research into F-L’s work, including her connection to Fountain, has the consensus in the art world been that Duchamp created the original work. Further prior to that there has never been consensus that he did as there was never any corroborated proof of the identity of the artist. This is an important example of how, without any proof, patriarchal bias and position allows a male artist, Duchamp in this instance, to be assumed to have created a work with, at the very least, far less proof that he created it than there is for a female artists having done so. This issue sits at the core of the patriarchal systems across all subjects areas that have allowed credit to be given to men over the decades without any proof of it and how those assumed histories eventually become the ‘accepted’ history by some. In this example there is not one single authorised source or catalogue that ascribes the original work to Duchamp without question that has been published since the 80s. As I would like to think most editors on art pages know there is a system of attribution that involves the definitions;  by, from the school of, from the studio of, after, ascribed to and disputed.  Where there are disagreements it is the catalogue raisonne that is regarded as a pivotal reference. All versions of Duchamp’s are archived at the Kandinsky Library of the Centre Pompidou. Not one of these claims that the original fountain was ‘by’ Duchamp and since the revised 1997 edition the original work has been officially referred to as either disputed or with the explanation that whilst later versions were produced from his studio the original is not proven to be by Duchamp.

Concerning the term ready-made that is used in defence of Duchamp by some editors, ascribing an incorrect timeline for its use, the following passage from ‘Ready Made Century’ (Daniels) states that ‘Bicycle Wheel’ which some editors claim to prove his use of the technique and term in 1913 (it is not a readymade but a assemblage as it consists of two parts put together by Duchamp)  “Accordingly, it is not classiﬁed as a readymade by Duchamp in his Boîte-en-valise. In later interviews he always stressed that when he ﬁrst mounted the Bicycle Wheel in his studio, it had no connection to the term readymade, which he would only hear later in the US. “The word did not exist—the thought did not exist…”

The Guardian article exposes the problems around Duchamp, some years after F-L had passed and almost 40 years after Fountain was exhibited, starting to claim the work as his in the 1950’s, though he only did this once in a conversation that included a blatant untruth that he purchased the urinal from Mott Works despite the fact that it did not manufacture that model of urinal at the time. There are other important points in this text, such as that the handwriting of ‘R. Mutt’ matches F-L’s used in her poetic works and differs significantly from any by Duchamp. There are also (in said article and more detailed research) points about aspects of the style & meaning of the work being at odds with anything else Duchamp created but central to much of F-L's work. The extensive research is also contained in the mentioned Glyn Thompson and Julian Spalding 2015 exhibition A Lady’s Not a Gent’s, aspects of it in Gamell’s book on F-L and also in ‘Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century' by John Higgs.   The problem here is that a small number of editors on wiki are deciding what the consensus is in very stark contrast to the reality of that consensus outside of wiki. I understand why allowing editors to remain anonymous can be useful but when it comes to significant and important issues around misattribution or prejudice in the arts (or any subject) the problem is that it's not possible to know whether those editing have in-depth knowledge of the subject, have kept up with the research or indeed have a problematic attitude generally and I would say that some such attitudes are obvious in this discussion (inc. gas lighting, sexism, misrepresentation of the sequence of edits etc). I note in the discussion on this page from 2018 that some of those arguing against changing the page offer no proof whatsoever that Duchamp created the work & it has been the same in this more recent discussion. There is no proof that he did yet wiki editors insist the work is attributed to him and any doubt only discussed as a side-theory. Given the extensive research that is now available (and much has been since the 80’s, almost 40 years ago) the continued insistence that the work be credited to Duchamp on an important public information site is very clearly part of the refusal of some to accept the patriarchal bias it represents.

It should also be noted here that the estate of Duchamp does not consider the original Fountain to have been by him, only the copies. To put all of this another way; given that there is no corroborated proof or fact based research (fact based as in research that looks at logistical aspects, earlier work, photographs, letters and papers from the time etc) that Duchamp created Fountain but that since the 1980’s at least there has been more and more evidence that Duchamp did not create it, what would it take for that to be properly reflected in how the work is referred to on the entire wiki page? On that research the view put forward on wiki, and that seems to be being allowed to remain no matter what, is that there is controversy around the work, and further that one of 3 possible women might have created it. That was the widely held view for some years after research into feminist art history, and into this work and the women mentioned began, but it hasn’t been for some years now. We aren’t talking 2 or 3 years but almost 40. Nowhere else in the arts discusses the work in the way wiki does.

One other way to look at all of this (and this goes for other examples in the arts where the work of female artists is either ignored, suppressed or dismissed) is that if the page properly reflected the doubt around the work by, for example, not referring to it as 'by Duchamp' that would not diminish the work or Duchamp’s reputation at all but it would allow students and other interested parties a further source of information that fits in with the widely held view and expands on the important move within the arts to reflect the feminist research that has taken place since the 1970's (to clarify; feminist as in attempting to fully research the role of previously unknown, ignored or suppressed female artists) As it stands reading this wiki page, and lots of others on the site connected to the arts, is like stepping back in time to an era before feminism and feminist research.

On a set of scales the evidence for not Duchamp & for F-L far outweighs the narrow evidence, based entirely on supposition, for his involvement. All of the established facts around both artists, the era and the logistical aspects (facts not opinions such as it being mailed from where F-L was living, her use of various plays on the sound of R.Mutt & its connections to german words) support that he didn’t or couldn’t have created the work. All other assertions are opinions based on the old assumption that he created the work but without any proof.

When it comes to the view that significant changes to the page should be agreed upon on the talk page first perhaps some of you will reflect on the fact that this hasn’t worked before, not only on this post but on others attempting to correct problematic content on art & artworks. I'm referring here to major articles where proven facts have been removed and unproven ones allowed to remain. If current editors want other, perhaps newer editors, or those with more direct, up to date connection to the research, to be involved, shutting down attempts to correct problematic content is not ideal. I accept my initial attempt to edit the page was activism based but the system has not worked for this work or for 1000's of other wiki pages (classical composer pages where 18 year old male students are listed but attempts to edit in significant female composers are constantly removed, Sound Art page which is, frankly, something of a joke seeing as how it includes mostly male musicians (some who never use the term Sound Art of have it ascribed to their work) but again where significant female artists are removed or not listed)

 Wiki of course allows anyone to edit pages and so there is always going to be an issue around the accuracy of contentious works as a very small number of editors decide on what should be allowed to be stated as fact, even when such views are unsupported by the research. I am sure some editors involved in this discussion, as they have stated, accept that there is doubt and controversy and yet the unsupported credit given to Duchamp remains (and the page is now locked to prevent others from editing unless approved by certain other editors). That can only be seen as patriarchal bias and therefore adds to the widely held view that wiki is actively complicit in the ongoing issue of sexism across various subjects. There are numerous examples across wiki of carefully researched and cited refs being removed based on nothing but the power of some editors to do so and that is a significant problem. The only way to counter such bias is to ensure that where there is at least proof of doubt about a work or of the involvement of female artists that that is fully included and that unsupported attribution of work is not allowed to lead and dominate an article. I don't expect any of the proof & research mentioned to be discussed here so i'm stepping out of this issue now. If editors are ok with wiki being incorrect or biased then that is up to them but students / younger art interested people, perhaps without access to large libraries or the time to go into all the research deserve to have access to sites that keep up with the research and do not reinforce problematic attribution of work User: JrFedits — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 08:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is zero hard evidence the Baroness made the work and again, all of what you've written here is unsubstantiated opinion. I have read and re-read the Gammel work of 2002^[1] and there is nothing but speculative theories to place her close to the Fountain, in fact Gammel writes more than once: "While final evidence is missing, a great deal of circumstantial evidence suggests..." the Baroness was involved (p. 227). Any 'new' research is only expanding this speculation, in some cases to a near comic result (What would the crate that the urinal arrived in from Philadelphia have looked like? A: there has never been evidence of a crate, nor that it came from Philadelphia.) The Baroness never claimed to have made the work, her friends never spoke out on the matter, yet admired Duchamp enough to create an homage to him 5 years later. These theories about the Baroness have all been constructed 75 years after the fact by academics. Wikipedia is not the place for circumstantial theories, nor are museums or academia imo. The reality is that Duchamp and a close circle of friends (Arensberg, Norton, Stieglitz) collaborated to realise Duchamp's idea. All evidence supports this. The evidence is very well know and has been around since the Fountain debacle occurred in 1917 (Duchamp and Arensberg's resignation in protest, Stieglitz's photo in his gallery, Norton's address on the tag (this duh is the female friend who sent in the urinal and possibly signed it R Mutt), Norton's published defense "The Richard Mutt Case" in The Blind Man)

Further, the evidence as to the Baroness's precedent "God" is also massively circumstantial. All writing on her involvement in this ready-made revolves around stylistic and modish speculation (Schamberg didn't dress wildly enough to make it according to Gammel (p. 221)). Although I personally think she was involved in titling the work, again there is zero proof other than Francis Nauman's guesswork.

The existing Wikipedia articles on the Baroness and above-mentioned works all already acknowledge these theories, somewhat unfairly in my opinion as they ignore Louise Norton and the others involved in a radical Dadaist collaboration. Any attempt to change speculation into fact is vandalism, politically motivated or not. Reversion wars, hasty edits, and unsupported lengthy comments only prove your lack of scholarship. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Gammel, Irene, 1959- (2002). Baroness Elsa : gender, dada, and everyday modernity : a cultural biography. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-07231-9. OCLC 48221458.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

in reply; unfortunately this editor is blatantly refusing to accept any of the research, either on Duchamp or on F-L, the catalogue raissone or the Duchamp Foundation itself. There is a large amount of research on F-L now & on the attribution to Duchamp. Again, there is nothing in any book on Duchamp or paper on fountain that contains any factual evidence that he created the work. This is not 'opinion' but hard research around such things as her use of 'Richard' and 'Mutt', the postal address the work was sent from etc. Insulting me or any editor doesn't detract from this editors arrogance and refusal to acknowledge facts or highly respected research.

It's also worth pointing out that the French wiki page (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_(Duchamp) ), and most other international versions, do not attribute the work to Duchamp in the same way anymore, because they reflect only actual research that has ever been done on the piece (prior to 1979 there was no research on it that didn't start from the assumption that he did based only on patriarchy and his false statement in the 50's). Instead it says "Fontaine (in English: Fountain ) is a ready-made by Marcel Duchamp or Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven" & goes on to reference some of the research repeatedly removed from this wiki page. (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:27, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What research? Not one thing you've claimed in your last reply is true. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 13:52, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

everything I have stated is based on the research that is contained in numerous books & papers. All you seem to do is refuse to accept research whilst sticking to a version of the story that has had even less research done on it, whilst throwing insults around. I forgot to add another key fact; Duchamp has stopped exhibiting and creating physical works at that point, working only with text, and did not start again until some years after 'Fountain'. (User talk:JrFedit)

Nonsense. Key facts: L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–1923), Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette (1920–21) Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? (1921) Monte Carto Bonds (1924). Coldcreation (talk) 09:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

all of which are some years after Fountain, except for The Large Glass which was worked on but not shown until 1923. As is included in most of the key books on Duchamp he had stopped exhibiting objects, except for textbased works (including L.H.O.O.Q.), for some years between 1914/15 & the 1920's & this is also included as a supporting piece of evidence in the research into F-L & Fountain since then 1980's. Editors who refuse to acknowledge the research, the findings of the Catalogue Raissone and the Duchamp estate / foundation need to have a think about their motives for constantly refusing to accept any of it, and its interesting that the same editors do similar things on other pages where there have been attempts to correctly include female artists User:JrFedit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.207.142.205 (talk) 17:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Editors who refuse to acknowledge the research... need to have a think about their motives for constantly refusing to accept any of it" How laughably – and unintentionally – ironic! (｡◝‿◜｡)

If you want to do something positive for women artists User:JrFedit, I would suggest learning how to make new, properly sourced and formatted pages on women artists to balance the gender bias. This is truly important. But tbh it takes a lot more work than what you've done here so far, but with a willingness to learn both the etiquette and technical aspects of Wikipedia, combined with a touch of humility, I'm sure you can. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

well, i've been involved in positive activism & curation within the arts in terms of female artists for a few decades now so i'm not going to take any suggestions from someone who has an edit history that involves conflict of interest & other problematic behaviour and who shows obvious signs of sexism in their selective understanding of research and refusal to accept any of the more recent research that contradicts their biased views. I've also worked on projects with the Duchamp archives and estate, on a project to highlight the important work of female dada-ist artists, the work of several of whom Duchamp tried to suppress, as indeed did others at the time. So far my experience of editing on wiki, which I have done on a few pages, all about key female artists, has been one of constant refusal by male editors to allow properly referenced edits and to insult and dismiss the work of said artists. There are 10's of 1000's of pages that are blatantly problematic & there comes a point where it becomes obvious not that work needs to be done but that problematic work is constantly been done. You can't keep defending a system that excludes some research but allows only other research, or indeed opinions not based on any research (no research has ever proved Duchamp created the work). user:JrFedit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.207.142.205 (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

1. To sign a post you put 4 ~ in a row and it will automatically sign and date it.

2. COI's are not inherently problematic, unlike the revision warring which you got banned for 48 hours. But yes, COIs need to be posted publicity, which I did when advised. This is actually a good example of me not knowing due to inexperience, listening to the more experienced editors, and then heeding their advice.

3. To date you have produced 0 specific usable citations regarding this page.

4. In closing I suggest we both: Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass.

Kind regards, Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have, if you bothered to read things carefully, already admitted that it has taken me awhile to get used to certain aspects of wiki editing. The 'revision warring' I dispute as I attempted to correctly adjust the page to reflect the wide ranging consensus on this work. The warring came from others refusing to accept that or discuss the various items of research. Again, if you bothered to read the history you would see that all of the research has been mentioned inc. the research that has been removed from the page despite being published widely. You claim I have provided 0 usable citations but the majority of the points I have made are already in research referenced on the page. I have mentioned the catalogue raisonne, which is the definitive source on the work of an artist. I have mentioned & ref. the French wiki page that more accurately reflects the research. The wider point here is that it is obvious to me that even if a letter from Duchamp was found saying 'Else did it' with a photo of her taking Fountain to be shipped you would argue against it. It doesn't matter the number of times the research is mentioned you refuse to accept it. Seriously, google F-L & get reading. There are numerous papers available as pdf's for example & I attempted to get some of these included on the page but they were rejected & removed & the page locked to all but 'approved editors'. Do the research. Doing anything else is complicity in the sexist distortion of art history. JrFedit (talk) 22:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The attribution of Fountain has nothing to do with bias, gender or sexism. It has to do with Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Coldcreation (talk) 22:36, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

- IMO it's time to archive this pointless discussion per consensus:

Attribution of The Richard Mutt Case to Beatrice Wood

I wish to highlight the following entry in the Origin section:

The editorial, written by Louise Norton, accompanying the photograph, entitled "The Richard Mutt Case",^[1] made a claim that would prove to be important concerning certain works of art that would come after it:

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 – created a new thought for that object.^[2]

In defense of the work being art, Norton also wrote, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges."^[2] Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.

In a number of sources the entirety of these are pages not attributed to Louis Norton. Instead the attribute The Richard Mutt Case to Beatrice Wood and the essay below – there is also a clear page break –, Buddha of the Bathroom, to Louis Norton. Note the detailed Tate Modern entry that mentions Woods biography: [1]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573.

Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 01:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, p. 185.
^ ^a ^b The Blind Man, Vol. 2, 1917, p. 5.

I'm seeing also things like "Anonymous article in The Blind Man # 2, May 1917. Written by Beatrice Wood, H.P. Roché and/or Marcel Duchamp." All pointing to another author other than Louise Norton. Any help on this attribution appreciated. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 15:16, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've reworded it Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FIY re:authorship

Not sure if this contains new evidence, which is why I’m adding the link here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/15/conceptualist-art-fountain-is-fake-say-historians-marcel-duchamp Breston (talk) 13:31, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Gammel, Irene, 1959- (2002). Baroness Elsa : gender, dada, and everyday modernity : a cultural biography. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-07231-9. OCLC 48221458.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

[2] Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, p. 185.

[Blind_Man-3] The Blind Man, Vol. 2, 1917, p. 5.

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