Marcel Duchamp's 1917 readymade *Fountain* and its radical questioning of art's definition are the focus of a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, curated by Matthew Affron, Michelle Kuo, and Ann Temkin. The exhibition, the first major Duchamp show in the U.S. since 1973, assembles three hundred objects and presents them chronologically, tracing Duchamp's evolution from early paintings to his conceptual breakthroughs. The article highlights how *Fountain* was originally submitted to a no-jury exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists, sparking a debate that ultimately led to its rejection and Duchamp's resignation, a pivotal moment in art history.
This exhibition matters because it reexamines Duchamp's legacy at a time when his ideas about authorship, institutional authority, and the viewer's role in completing the artwork remain profoundly influential. By contextualizing *Fountain* within the broader arc of Duchamp's career, the show underscores how his work shifted the ontological foundations of Western art, making questioning itself a central artistic act. The article critiques common misunderstandings of Duchamp's readymades, arguing that his true innovation was not simply declaring anything art, but exposing the social and discursive processes that confer artistic status.