Ready-made

What is a ready-made?

A ready-made is an ordinary, everyday object that an artist raises to the status of an artwork simply by choosing it and declaring it to be art. It is not something made by the artist's own hand, then, but a gesture of choosing and of seeing anew a thing we know from everyday life. Isn't it fascinating that a bicycle wheel can become a work of art through the artist's decision alone?

Who introduced this principle?

The ready-made was introduced by the French artist Marcel Duchamp. His Bicycle Wheel of 1913 is generally considered the first, and the most famous example is Fountain of 1917, a mass-produced object presented as art. With these gestures Duchamp changed forever the question of what we actually consider art to be.

Why is the ready-made so important?

The ready-made opened the door to several fundamental movements that came after it. Conceptual art, in which the idea is paramount, draws directly on it, and minimalism and pop art were inspired by it too. Without Duchamp's gesture, twentieth-century art would look quite different.

Where can I learn more about the ready-made?

The subject is covered by the Art Part Club lecture Turning Points: The Ready-made. You can be guided through how one chosen object managed to change the whole history of art. What better than to understand the break from which so much of modern art grew?

— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club