GIORGOS  AGELAKIS
P H O T O G R A P H Y

There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the ‘useful’ function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it ‘a new thought’, a new meaning. Duchamp’s readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist. Choosing the object is itself a creative act, cancelling out the useful function of the object makes it art, and its presentation in the gallery gives it a new meaning. This move from artist-as-maker to artist-as-chooser is often seen as the beginning of the movement to conceptual art, as the status of the artist and the object are called into question. At the time, the readymade was seen as an assault on the conventional understanding not only of the status of art but its very nature.

A readymade term…!

Interestingly, the term chosen by Duchamp to describe his new approach to art making is in itself one that is ‘readymade’. By the end of the nineteenth century the term ‘ready-made’ was being used to describe objects that were manufactured as opposed to being handmade.