The readymade needs to die, just like the term “white cube.” Both have become catch-all terms that lack any specific reference to their original source. Discussions of the objet trouvé are relevant only if they refer to Duchamp's Fountain (1917) or things that, like Fountain, were mass-produced and then, with very little mediation on the artist's part, placed into an art context. My problems with using the term “readymade” (in gallery press-releases, art historical writing, blog posts, etcetera) after the jump.
