But one day in 1917, it is reported, the artist Marcel Duchamp bought one of these fine urinals, plunked it down on a little pedestal, signed it “R. Mutt 1917” and declared it art.
Naming the piece Fountain, he submitted it to an exhibition, and began the idea of the ‘ready made’ in the art world. Artists could simply take what others had made, do very little, if any manipulation, and ask us look at it in a new light, often poking fun at our relationship with products of mass production.
Of course it wasn’t until the industrial revolution of the 1800s that mass production became a regular part of society. In Wealth of Nations, one of the biggest wigs of the modern economy, Adam Smith, described a factory that made lowly straight pins. He lauded the value of dividing up the labor, giving every person a small part of the process of pin making, and having them do that job over and over again. Division of labor, together other innovations of the industrial revolution like interchangeable parts, specialized tools, and economies of scale, made things cheaper, faster, and in greater quantities than ever before.
In addition to things becoming more available and less costly, they also became, in a way, magically perfect. The idiosyncrasies of things that had been made by individual craftspeople were eliminated through design, reusable molds, and controlled manufacturing. Producing identical products, each one exactly like the one before it, was a fantastic trick on nature; a dazzling control of materials.
Mass production offered other benefits to consumers too. For example, it may have brought consumers closer together. For example, identical products ensured that consumers everywhere had very similar experiences. People around the world could wear the same clothes, eat the same foods, hold the same tools, and even piss in the same urinals. Buying these products also meant equality. Consumers could know that they all received the same quantities of raw materials, the same assembly, the same quality, and the same fair deal.
Of course industrialization had its costs. Among them was the increased distance that now existed between consumers and the products themselves. Division of labor meant diminishing pride and personal responsibility for what was produced. In addition, the increasing complexity of products meant that standards were set that individuals could never hope to reach by producing things on their own. Specialized tools and processes meant that the cost of individual production was out of reach of most consumers. As a result the bulk of what was made shifted out of the hands of the consumers into the hands of business. So one interpretation of Duchamp’s Fountain is that it is a reaction to the alienation caused by industrial revolution. Taking a mass produced item and redefining it as a form of personally produced art can be seen as a reclaiming of some of the loss caused by industrialization.
This idea can be seen in more recent work as well.
* * *
In her Ersatz series, Zoe Sheehan Zaldana (http://www.zoesheehan.com/) looks at seemingly simple common objects, and recreates them on her own. Her projects include a wooden match,
a paper bag (hers is on the left),
a life jacket, and paper towels. The results are stunning, both because they are virtually indistinguishable from those that were mass produced, but also because they lead us to consider the difficulty and effort required to accomplish these tasks and a feeling of futility in the endeavor. More importantly, one can’t help but judge, and the first criteria is naturally, how close her handmade version is to the commercial version. So the work highlights how we treat mass produced items as better than or at least a worthy standard against which we judge. Returning to Duchamp’s Fountain, there is some speculation that his readymade urinal was anything but, and that he too had created rather than purchased the urinal (see: http://www.economist.com/node/15766467?story_id=15766467 and http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Marcel_Duchamp/)
* * *
Like Zoe Sheehan Zaldan, Tom Sachs (www.tomsachs.org) builds stylized replicas of mass produced items using a variety of materials. In his Cameras series he builds models of branded cameras from wood, cardboard, and ceramics. Their imperfect look has a desperate appearance of trying to be like the mass produced versions of the products, but not quite arriving.
* * *
In a more collaborative effort, Stephanie Syjuco created the Counterfeit Crochet Project (http://www.counterfeitcrochet.org/index.html), in which she and other knitters and weavers create handmade personalized versions of designer handbags.
The results as she says are both “homages and lumpy mutations.” Seeing her work as both mocking and celebrating the brands and products she copies. By making these products themselves participants are responding to exclusivity of high priced designer brands, by taking control of the production. Stephanie points out that Crochet is itself one of the easiest of the creative crafts, and so her use of this everywoman citizens' process to produce replicas of products intended for the minority wealthy, she comments on the differences individuals have in access to the market place.
* * *
Finally, Todd Wilbur uses mass produced iconic food items as his medium. Taking control back from the food industry, Todd performs for us, showing us how we can simply, in our own kitchens, prepare such automated delights as the McDonalds Big Mac and the Hostess Twinkee.
Unlike Stephanie Syjuko and the Counterfeit Crochet Project, Todd chooses some of the least expensive consumer products as his targets. But these products are iconic in part because of the magical consistency that seemingly only machines can deliver. As one freind of mine once asked, "Is Wonder Bread really baked? Or is it just somehow produced?" But watching Todd satisfies us that if we choose to make it so, this perfectness may not be entirely out of our reach. For a video of Todd making Twinkees click here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yeyy4mQoes)
