I don't know who he is. I don't care about him or his urinal!

- My wife J, on Marcel Duchamp.


The two of us were in Manhattan one day, and we visited MoMa. We made it a point to see their house collection which is impressive, since it has been a while that we'd seen it.  I forgot the Marcel Duchamp pieces that they possessed.  I find them ingenious, though I understand that readymade art is an acquired taste for a visual art neophyte, much like myself.

Duchamp: Bicycle Wheel (MoMa)

After a few drinks and some music, I began some ramblings on Duchamp in our taxi ride home.  I elaborated with an inebriated, incoherent exploration of the genius behind Fountain (or whatever limited knowledge I had on the subject), and I kept insisting after perceiving mild indifference on her part, which pushed her to utter that epic quote above.  It really tickled me that she used the word "urinal", in her outburst, because of the simplicity that Duchamp achieves in the abstraction of the urinal itself.
The urinal's metamorphosis happens somewhere between our ears, without much intervention from the artist itself, but a careful placement of the title.

Duchamp: Fountain

The truth is, without even having studied nearly the amount of Art History that I wish I would have, I am certainly curious about Dada, in the most romantic way possible.  I am infatuated by its origins, and its evolution.

The movement started as a revolution in sub-bourgeois circles in central Europe, and it propagated to the US and Asia as well.  The rebellion against the bourgeois capitalism and its tendencies for arousing conflict pushed artists, bohemians, intellectuals to convene in small circles and share their satires and parodies in as many forms as possible.

Thank you, Duchamp, for giving us the Fountain to drink from, for many years to come.  We don't care about you, or your damn urinal.