10/5 Response

The interview with Marcel Duchamp was very interesting. It was nice to get one of the artist's perspectives on their work and why they do what they do. His work was apparently very controversial at the time and extremely different than anything that was being done. Being the first to do an abstract painting obviously makes him very important in art history. Abstract painting is art and is different and interesting, but I'm not so sure about the other work he did. One of the first works that he talks about in the interview is the painting "Pharmacy." I really don't understand how he can claim that as his own because all he did was take an already drawn picture and then added a red and a green dot to the picture. Sure, it brings your eye to the dots, but I don't understand how that could be considered art, just because he took it from someone else pretty much. Then, the urinal that he decided to call a fountain is extremely different as well. He was obviously innovative for his time and a lot of the work he did was extremely controversial.