Critics Misread Duchamp's Fountain, Says Jean-Jacques Lebel

In a critique of art historian Martin Damus's book "L'arte del neocapitalismo," artist Jean-Jacques Lebel challenges Damus's interpretation of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain." Damus claimed one could urinate in the urinal "without betraying Duchamp's gesture," citing a joke from Lebel's letter to Wolf Vostell. Lebel clarifies the remark was a joke, not a serious reading. He explains Duchamp transformed the object from vertical to horizontal, renaming it "Fountain" (feminine in French), shifting its meaning semiotically. The artwork is not the object itself but its spatial dislocation and linguistic renaming. Lebel also refutes critic Rosalind Krauss's etymology of "R. Mutt" from German "Armut" (poverty), as Duchamp himself denied this in a conversation with Otto Hahn. The article, by Marcello Faletra in Artribune Magazine #64, reflects on the gap between art writing and aesthetic reality, citing Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" and Lebel's view that art history is not an exact science.