This Art Stinks

Artists attacks Duchamps famous urinal - THE ARTS - MSNBC.com

"A 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" -- a porcelain urinal -- with a hammer, police said.

Duchamp's 1917 piece -- an ordinary white, porcelain urinal that's been called one of the most influential works of modern art -- was slightly chipped in the attack at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum said Thursday. It was removed from the exhibit for repair.

A 2004 poll of 500 arts figures ranked "Fountain" as the most influential work of modern art -- ahead of Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica", Picasso's depiction of war's devastation."

What they don't mention here is coming in a very close fourth in the 2004 poll was "Porta John" by the little known southern artist Joe Bob Smith. When produced in the early 60's many critics called it "too derivative" of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain", but the piece has since gained respect in the art world after being featured in multiple episodes of the seminal MTV comedy show, "Jackass".