the fountain that divided the world

[Music] and Now for Something Completely Different hi welcome to stories of art my name is today I want to tell you the story of one of the controversies in art it is the story about this the fountain it was signed by R Mutt and I'm sure you've seen it or think you've seen it because very few people have ever seen the original but I'll get to that in a minute it's an object that has divided opinion for over a century now and whether you like it or not it became quite influential in the development of modern art in the mid 20th century in fact it's one of those Works where you can say it is truly iconic everybody seems to know it and still today many people have strong opinions about it some see it as part of the movements that freed art from its former constraints that is to say it made much of what later became conceptual art possible and others maintain that this is nonsense that a five-year-old could make and frankly both of these can be seen as valid points so I thought it would be a good idea to tell you the story behind it and go over the many controversies about it and there are many of those in fact in the last few years a new one has emerged but I'll get to that later in the video but hopefully by the end of this video you will have gained an understanding of this work of the opinions about it and maybe an appreciation for those who hold the opposite view of yours in this debate let's start at the beginning though this object work of art its story starts outside of itself it starts with an exhibition in New York in 1917 there was to be an exhibition it was organized by the Society of Independent Artists that had been formed about a year earlier now they in turn had been inspired by an earlier French group called The Society de artiste independent and they had been formed in 1884. now they had been formed as a reaction to the official Salon in Paris those had been those large exhibitions where you could enter works of art but only if you were an artist and only if you were a member of the Art Academy the academic de it and then only if you pass the selection committee that determined whether or not the quality of your work was satisfactory and the purpose of these exhibitions to many people was that there will be prizes given out by a jury now the associative artist independent tried a different approach they held exhibitions where anyone could enter a work if they paid an entry fee and in New York they wanted to copy this process and so they founded the Society of Independent Artists to have an exhibition on those very same principles the idea was that it was more democratic the audience was to decide whether or not something was suitable or was good art not some panel of so-called experts and then a jury the Americans even went so far as to decide that they would not place the artwork in any sort of categories or any sort of order artwork wouldn't even be sorted by type like sculpture or painting instead they would be presented simply placed in an exhibition Hall in alphabetical order based on the name of the artist the the last name so there was a group of people involved in society