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Art & Art History vocabulary · Contemporary Art

Readymade

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

/ˈredimeɪd/nounAdvanced term

In art & art history, readymade means: An ordinary manufactured object that an artist chooses and presents as art, with little or no change; the idea was introduced by Marcel Duchamp in the 1910s.

In Turkish: hazır nesne, ready-made

How it is used

Duchamp's Fountain (1917), a urinal signed ‘R. Mutt’, is the best-known readymade. The term is central to debates about what makes something art, and it paved the way for conceptual art. Also written ready-made.

Example sentences

  1. Duchamp's readymades asked whether simply choosing an object could be an artistic act.

  2. Is a readymade still art if the original is lost and only replicas survive?

Common collocations

  • Duchamp's readymades
  • assisted readymade
  • found object
  • everyday object
  • conceptual artArt in which the idea or concept behind the work matters more than how it looks or how skilfully it is made; it developed mainly in the 1960s and 1970s.
  • avant-gardeArtists, works or ideas that are new and experimental and challenge accepted rules; the word is French for the front part of an army.
  • installationAn artwork made for a particular space, often filling a whole room, which visitors walk into or around and experience with more than just their eyes.
  • modern artArt made roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, when artists broke with academic traditions and experimented with new styles, subjects and materials.

More terms: Contemporary Art

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