7 examples of Ready-made WORKS

“The Bicycle Wheel” (1913), “The Fountain” (1917), “L.H.O.O.Q.” (1918), “Object to be destroyed” (1923), “Bed” (1955), “Trash” (1961) or “Balloon dog” (2000) are some of the readymade works further famous in the history of art. At unPROFESOR.com we present them to you.

Know what is a readymade? The term ready-made refers to an artistic concept created by the artist Marcel Duchamp at the beginning of the 20th century. A truly revolutionary and transgressive concept that raised great controversy among the most traditional artistic currents, in addition to questioning the notions of art, authorship and originality.

In this lesson of unPROFESOR.com we tell you what is a readymade and we offer you a list of the best ready-made works and examples of this type of artistic concept.

Between the most famous examples of ready-mades there are undoubtedly those made by Duchamp. And "La fuente" (1917) is one of the most representative.

"The fountain", Supposedly created by Duchamp in 1917, it is another of the best Ready-made works. He has behind him all

a bizarre story very much in the style of those that the artist liked. It is a ready-made that constitutes a true myth in the history of modern art. This porcelain urinal was presented by Duchamp himself as a work created by a friend of his under a male pseudonym (R.Mutt) and sent as a sculpture to the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists of New York. The sculpture was rejected and was not exhibited despite the fact that it had been established that all works would be accepted.

duchamp, who belonged to the board of this society, left it in the middle of a heated debate about whether "La Fuente" was art or not. The work was not attributed to Duchamp until 1935, years after the other artist considered as a possible author, although the French artist was also in the habit of speaking of himself in the feminine.

Other examples of Duchamp's ready-made are “The Bicycle Wheel”, “Air de Paris”, “L.H.O.O.Q.” or "Bottle holder".

Be that as it may, there are currently several theories that defend how the original creator of the ready-made, the famous "Fountain" attributed to Duchamp, would be another Dadaist artist. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, also known as the Baroness. An artist known for her erotic poetry and building her own works from everyday objects, as well as being in love with Duchamp and having dedicated some of his sculptures to him. And it is that Duchamp, fond of creating misunderstandings, did not associate his name with the famous urinal until the 50s, at which time he was already the only witness to the origin and presentation of the work.

In this other lesson we discover you what is Duchamp's ready-made.

The Duchamp's influence on contemporary art it has led numerous artists to experiment and reinterpret this concept of the ready-made. Among the most notable works is "Object to be Destroyed or Heartbreak" (1923) by Man Ray

It is located in the Reina Sofía Museum and is adadaist workwhose purpose is to show us destructive power of love. For the elaboration of him Man Ray placed a metronome and placed on his pendulum a photograph of one of his ex, Lee Miller. In the readymade instructions for use He detailed how it had to be done to destroy it: place the photograph of the eye of the loved person with whom it has been cut, start the metronome and destroy it with a single blow of the hammer.

During an exhibition in Paris, this metronome was destroyed by a group of students and replaced by a new one. Man Ray changed the name of it to the "Indestructible Object".

Bed is another of the most famous Ready-made works. The author called this type of works since in them he combined discarded objects with traditional supports such as canvases. Rauschenberg follows a technique in the style of Duchamp, framing his works within the neodadaism.

In this ready-made, the author uses a pillow, a sheet and a duvet (it is said that they were the ones he used to sleep in since he had no money for anything else) splattered with paint in the style of abstract expressionism.

This work is located in the Pompidou Center in Paris and in it we can see the great influence of Duchamp. This readymade by Arman falls within the NeoDada, each of the objects being a kind of small fragments or witnesses of a story that we can interpret or imagine in our own style.

A kind of portrait of an anonymous life. Likewise, Arman places accumulated rubbish inside showcases as if they were objects from a museum, breaking with the academic vision of art and showing us other realities.