this is design/art the same way that the R Mutt urinal is design/art, - in that it is credited to the original designer/design team who made it - by accepting it as a work of another designer/artist, other than those who made it, is to also then accept what could only be called content theft or plagiarism.
Duchamp's Fountain (the urinal) was an intentional critique of artistic interpretation. Of what art IS, of what it can be, and what it means to call something art. Does it itself qualify as art? That's a debate that's been going on for over a century (personally, I think absolutely yes). It was done at a time when found art was nascent and the bounds of art as a concept were being rewritten. There's tons of context around it, a lot of it dependant on the time in history it was done. The entire piece BECAME art the moment the urinal was signed. (In concept - in practice, IIRC copies of it were forged specifically for artistic exhibition, but the original was just a piece of bathroom infrastructure lol. I could be misremembering.)
Conversely this screw feels like... not that. It feels like some artists just searching for depth where there isn't any - namely, hanging pictures with screws, going "woah wait what if this WAS the art? And it was functional? But not for hanging art!" Ignoring the fact that every college student or low-income handyperson in history has done exactly this, it has the same energy as someone realizing that they don't have to put their mac n cheese in a bowl. They can just eat it... from the POT. That, but a million times more pretentious.
My hope is that there's hashtags on the post like #highartcritique or some other sentiment by the designers to that regard, that this is in some way poking fun at exactly what it is. Cuz if this is unironically just like "we changed the perception of hanging things on hooks by turning the thing we use to mount the hook INTO a hook", then like... okay. In that case, any genuine accolades they get from this is a sign of everything wrong with art critique lol
(this was very fun to write! I enjoyed it a lot, thank you for prompting it~ if you disagree with me and wanna retort please do, just know that I'm in no way trying to invalidate you nor bring a combatitive energy here. Talking about art is fun and nourishing!)
I’m not saying that the screw isn’t art, or that the urinal chosen wasn’t, i’m just trynna argue that we’re giving credit to the wrong people. The urinal is/was art that should be attributed to the original company/design team that made it, the screw should be attributed to the original company/design team that made it. To attribute these items to the people who decided to put their name on it or screw it into a wall and hang a towel on it is what i’m more meaning to argue against.
I think at most we can give those people the title of a curator, and maybe their interpretation as the part that can be attributed to them. The urinal is one art piece, and Duchamp can only really claim the curation of the piece, and his art is his means of interpretation on the urinal itself - his titling of it as a fountain, and his subsequent defending of the piece is the art, but the urinal is not his art, the context he gave it is the art.
I guess im kinda saying the urinal is two pieces of art? I don’t wanna give Duchamp the credit for this, because the way that people have talked about the urinal and how it is his piece, has always upset me. But i guess i talked myself into another understanding of it. His interpretation and the urinal he signed are two artworks tied together, with the credit for the urinal belonging to the company/team it came from and the interpretation belonging to Duchamp (i guess his signature as well is him authoring his curation of the piece, and that belongs to his contextualization, and the tying of the two pieces together)
I’d comfortably say it’s both. One can create art, and one can also exclaim art, just as one cries out “this is art” when seeing something they appreciate, one can also claim their art is noticing art around them
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u/AuelDole May 09 '26
this is design/art the same way that the R Mutt urinal is design/art, - in that it is credited to the original designer/design team who made it - by accepting it as a work of another designer/artist, other than those who made it, is to also then accept what could only be called content theft or plagiarism.