기계적 복제 시대의 저자: 마르셀 뒤샹의 <분수>와 복제품의 오리지낼리티

Abstract

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp chose a mans urinal, signed it R. Mutt 1917," entitled it Fountain, and submitted it for an art exhibition. Although Fountain was rejected, it posed the fundamental questions regarding the nature of art and its authenticity. Fountain was canonized as the groundbreaking practice of Readymade, which changed the course of modem art once and for all. Yet, it is a sheer mystery how this urinal, one of the standardìzed products, mechanically manufactured in a factory to be consumed for everyday needs, was alienated from its initial field of commodity to be de-commiditized, re-valorized, and circulated as a significant work of art, without the material existence of the object and a visible author. For the urinal or Fountain disappeared soon after the rejection-either lost or destroyed. Moreover, since Duchamp kept his authorship a secret, only a handful of people knew that Mr. R. Mutt was in fact Duchamp. In the early 1930s, Duchamp began reproducing his lost original as accurately as possible based on his memory, documentation, and photograph. Although his original work was mechanically produced, the process of reproductions was highly controlled and the outcomes were carefully crafted by the artist. The range of histories of the things functioning as replicas of the lost Fountain reveals the iηtensity of the aspiration of the author to preserve the authenticity of the original and subsequently the authority of the artist by putting thε copies in circulation. By investigating the Fountains reproductions, I argue that bεhind the mystery of Fountain， there exists an author whose power is not activated by his manual labor of production, but by his name, i.e., the signature, in the realm of mass production in the age of mechanical reproduction.