“In 1917, Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal to the first annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists here in New York under the pseudonym, R. Mutt. Duchamp was one of the founding members of this organization, along with Walter Arensberg, Katherine Dreier, Man Ray, and Joseph Stella. This society was founded with the intention of providing a platform for individual artists to showcase their work, whether new, experienced, experimental, or avant-garde, and was dedicated to advancing the ideas of independent artists, free of juries, prizes, or ranking of any kind. As long as one paid the entry fee of six dollars, one’s work would be shown. The first annual exhibition included over 2,000 works of art. The catalog was organized and the exhibition hung in alphabetical order by the artists’ last names to ensure equal treatment. Yet shortly before the opening, the society refused to show Mutt’s [Duchamp’s] Fountain. Apparently the Society of Independent Artists was not as open to new ideas of art as one would have liked to believe. Once Duchamp proved this, he soon resigned from his position as a director.”
Click here to read full text in DIVISION/Review, Summer 2015