[mel]

okay explain it to me, i showed the picture to some friends and they all thought somebody famous and really important must have taken a whiz in it. And then I heard about the japanese taking a whiz in it at a art gallery something about turning art back to its correct form and they thought that was art. i am sorry it is kind of funny to me i guess my proletariat background is showing thru. But perhaps it is art because since i saw the picture of it, it has intrigued me. I have carried the picture around showing it to different people. i don't mean to sound dumb but it is kind of funny to me

[tututango]

Believe it or not, by exhibiting a urinal as "ready made" sculpture, Marcel Duchamp changed art forever. His influence is seen everywhere today.

I guess the most basic explanation of his importance is that he made the absurd artistic, giving rise to the dada movement as the springboard for most visual art today -- including broadcast images.

I recently read a good book about the dada artists, I think it's called "Dada-Art and Anti-art." It absolutely fascinates me how much the dada and post-modern artists have influenced the visual and spoken medium since the early 1920's.

You're not the only one to be taken by Duchamp's sculpture. I think about it often, and what it represents from the period. It was so simple, yet innovative, for Duchamp to display a commercially manufactured urinal as art. Most imagery today can be traced back to the dadaists -- one good modern example is the use of absurd metaphors and imagery in advertising.