Mishap
The Trouble With 'Fountain'
The urinal that keeps inviting the wrong kind of use
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Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Incident ReportCOA / MISHAPS
Accidental Damage Rating
- Repair Cost
- Disputed
- Curator's Blood Pressure
- 89%
- Embarrassment Level
- 7/10
- Recovered?
- Repaired
- Selfie Involved?
- No
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' — a signed urinal that founded conceptual art — has repeatedly tempted performance artist Pierre Pinoncelli to urinate in it and, later, attack it with a hammer.
Few artworks so directly invite misuse. Pinoncelli urinated into a version of 'Fountain' in 1993 as a homage-cum-provocation, and in 2006 chipped it with a hammer, claiming Duchamp himself would have approved.
He argued the acts completed the work's Dadaist spirit; the courts disagreed and fined him heavily. The recurring saga of 'Fountain' captures the paradox at conceptual art's heart: when the artwork is a provocation, how do you tell an attack from a tribute?