The use of the word "Dada" for the art movement, the meaning (if any) and intention of

both the piece and the signature "R. Mutt", are difficult to pin down precisely. It is not
clear whether Duchamp or Freytag-Lorinhoven had in mind the German "Armut"
(meaning "poverty"), or possibly "Urmutter" (meaning great mother).[19] If we separate
the capital and lowercase letters we get "R.M" and "utt", "R.M" would stand for
"Readymade" which is the fountain itself and "utt" when read out loud sounds like "eut
t" in French (much like Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q.).[citation needed] The name R. Mutt is a play
on its commercial origins and also on the famous comic strip of the time, Mutt and Jeff
(making the urinal perhaps the first work of art based on a comic).[citation needed] In German,
Armut means poverty, although Duchamp said the R stood for Richard, French slang for
"moneybags", which makes Fountain, a kind of scatological golden calf.[4]

Legacy
In December 2004, Duchamp's Fountain was voted the most influential artwork of the
20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals.[20] The Independent noted in
a February 2008 article that with this single work, Duchamp invented conceptual art and
"severed forever the traditional link between the artist's labour and the merit of the work".
[21]

Jerry Saltz wrote in The Village Voice in 2006:

Duchamp adamantly asserted that he wanted to "de-deify" the artist. The readymades
provide a way around inflexible either-or aesthetic propositions. They represent a
Copernican shift in art. Fountain is what's called an "acheropoietoi," [sic] an image not
shaped by the hands of an artist. Fountain brings us into contact with an original that is
still an original but that also exists in an altered philosophical and metaphysical state. It is
a manifestation of the Kantian sublime: A work of art that transcends a form but that is
also intelligible, an object that strikes down an idea while allowing it to spring up
stronger.[4]
The prices for replicas, editions, or works that have some ephemeral trace of Duchamp
reached its peak with the purchase of one of the eight 1964 replicas of "Fountain" for
$1.7 million at Sotheby's in November 1999.[22]

Interventions

'Fountain' replica, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Several performance artists have attempted to "contribute" to the piece by urinating in it.
South African born artist Kendell Geers, rose to international notoriety in 1993 when, at a
show in Venice, he urinated into the Fountain.[23] Artist / musician Brian Eno declared
successfully urinating in the Fountain while exhibited in the MOMA in 1993. He
admitted that it was only a technical triumph because he needed to urinate in a tube in
advance so he could get the fluid through a gap between the protective glass.[24] Swedish
artist Bjrn Kjelltoft urinated in the Fountain at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1999.
[25]

In spring 2000, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, two performance artists, who in 1999 had
jumped on Tracey Emin's installation-sculpture My Bed in the Turner Prize exhibition at
Tate Britain, went to the newly opened Tate Modern and urinated on the Fountain which
was on display. However, they were prevented from soiling the sculpture directly by its
Perspex case. The Tate, which denied that the duo had succeeded in urinating into the
sculpture itself,[26] banned them from the premises stating that they were threatening
"works of art and our staff." When asked why they felt they had to add to Duchamp's
work, Chai said, "The urinal is there it's an invitation. As Duchamp said himself, it's the
artist's choice. He chooses what is art. We just added to it."[21]
On January 4, 2006, while on display in the Dada show in the Pompidou Centre in Paris,
Fountain was attacked by Pierre Pinoncelli, a 76-year-old [27] French performance artist,
with a hammer causing a slight chip. Pinoncelli, who was arrested, said the attack was a
work of performance art that Marcel Duchamp himself would have appreciated.[28] In
1993 Pinoncelli urinated into the piece while it was on display in Nimes, in southern
France. Both of Pinoncelli's performances derive from neo-Dadaists' and Viennese
Actionists' intervention or manoeuvre.[citation needed]