Άρθρο/Article: Neo-Materialism, Part Two, The Unreadymade, by Joshua Simon
(© e-flux journal)
 |
(Efrat Kedem, Herzel
& Frankel St. corner,
2007,
cardboard, table and door handle.© e-flux)
|
The readymade emphasized the artist’s ability to
select an object and identify it as an artwork. That way, we accept that
Duchamp’s urinal relates more to Botticelli or Titian than to a bathtub. With
the notion of the readymade, Duchamp was able to render the validity of this
claim […].In a world overburdened with stuff, these objects give an object’s
account of what it means to be in the world. They suggest an understanding on
the part of the commodity, rather than of humans, as a historical subject. This
is no longer an object that the artist renders as art (i.e. readymade), but
rather it is the exhibition format—as both the narrative display of artifacts
and the institutional contract of that which is called art—that allows us to
see these commodities as they truly are…[…]
