# notes --- - [[art is getting away with it]] - art is contextextualization # summary --- In 1917, Marcel Duchamp created an art piece called “[Fountain]([Fountain (Duchamp) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29))”; the piece was a urinal signed R. Mutt. That was it. But it ended up completely changing how we understand art. Instead of “art” being about technical ability, it started being about the idea or concept behind it. Truly anything — including *nothing* — can be considered legitimate art if contextualized in a way that challenges, touches, intrigues the audience — even when the intent is explicitly to do none of those things. The article also explains a bit about the quote mentioned in [[art is getting away with it]] (the quote also used in the title). # highlights --- >A simple found object, or “Readymade” as Duchamp called it, could, if re-contextualized under the right conditions, suddenly take on an entirely different meaning, and thus be constituted as “Art”… [Fountain] pushed the technical discipline of art into the background, and moved the concept, or idea behind the work into the fore. >In the end, Art has come to mean (and perhaps it has always meant this) anything that engages our senses in a way that aims to enlighten an audience; and even if the intent is to specifically not enlighten us, we should still be enlightened by its conscious effort to do just that. >… art is simply a philosophy of the senses…