Ready(re)made
March 2008
Graphic Design + Sneakiness
Ready(re)mades was a plot to recreate Marcel Duchamp's readymade through a series of interventions. Just as Marcel became Rose Selavy and in this case R. Mutt, I too created an alias for this project. Forming Miss Tint (a fake organization) I hoped to bombard galleries and museums with enough evidence to make them question their art inventory.
The purpose of ready(re)made was to question the authenticity of the original "fountains" which were created after the fact also but to question the validity of art establishments in general. What gives them power? And how does archiving art work and popularizing the artist hinge on the role of the museum. Is it perhaps the same power that Marcel tapped into. The power to select.
Below is the transcript from the official letters that I mailed to 21 Museums in the greater NYC area. I did not receive one response.
Dear Museum and/or Gallery, Through the generous philanthropy of the Miss Tint Organization, your establishment has recently acquired a new work of art. Marcel DuChamp's "the fountain" signed under his alias, R. Mutt, is now a part of your permanent collection.
This work of art, which was previously appraised by the French courts at 3.4 million, is a complimentary gift to you. However, the value of your ready(re)made may vary and possibly be significantly less. Numerous factors play into this assessment, but the primary issue is that the donation is not an original.
Due to the fortunate collaboration the Miss Tint Organization had with noteworthy, covert, and prolific artists, an extremely high volume of ready(re)mades were delivered. This collaboration was industrious to such an extent that every Gallery and Museum in the greater metropolitan of New York (as well as Brooklyn dive bars) has received the same gift, as well as this same notification. Nonetheless, the value of the ready(re)mades could be unaffected by this latest admission since the "original" piece was lost after the Independent Arts Show of 1917 and subsequent versions were merely reproductions of DuChamp's concept.
In closing we hope you take all the precautions to make your newest acquisition accessible for pedagogy, inspiration, and utility by your patrons. It is a considerable acquisition to your inventory and a pivotal piece in the historical context of art. Lastly, make sure it doesn't receive too firm of a janitorial scrubbing by your staff.
Sincerely,
Miss Tint Org.
This letter was mailed with an affixed image of all the r. mutt readymades to the following museums...
New Museum, Whitney Museum, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Museum of Moderen Art, Jewish Museum, Independent Center of Photography, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Frick Collection, Dia:Beacon, Cooper-Hewitt, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Amer. Mus. of the Moving Image, American Museum of Natural History, American Folk Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Jewish Heritage, Museum of Modern Art, Mus. of the City of New York, Museum of TV and Radio, PS1 Contemporary Art
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