Some Aesthetic Decisions: Centenary Celebration of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain

One hundred years ago, Dada artist Marcel Duchamp forever changed the nature of art by anonymously submitting Fountain, 1917, a porcelain urinal signed “R. Mutt” for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, New York. The show organizers’ suppression of Fountain (concealed behind a partition for the show’s duration) ignited a controversy that persists to today about the definition of art and who gets to pass judgment.

NSU Art Museum marks this centenary with the exhibition Some Aesthetic Decisions, featuring works by artists including Cory Arcangel, John Baldessari, Sophie Calle, Marcel Duchamp, Judy Fiskin, Claire Fontaine, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Jorge Pardo, Tom Scicluna and others that explore issues of beauty, value and judgment.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Whether you go or not, the exhibition catalog, Some Aesthetic Decisions: A Centenary Celebration of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, considers questions surrounding the concepts of beauty, value and judgment in art. Features the work of the artists listed above. 

Some Aesthetic Decisions: A Centenary Celebration of Marcel Duchamp's Fountai