1993 installation with found objects, books, and text 88" x 60" x 24" The connections that led to the creation of this piece were these: 1) the black and white chessboard combined with an actual fountain brought to mind the segregated south, and 2) the similarity of Duchamp's pseudonym- (R.) Mutt, and his supposed city of origin, Philadelphia, with the name and origin of an early abolitionist, feminist and Quaker, (Lucretia) Mott, 3) which also happenned to be the name of the plumbing company where Duchamp bought his urinal. Lucretia Mott was barred from speaking at a supposedly "open" Quaker abolitionist's conference in England in the 1850's because she was a woman. Duchhamp's urinal also evokes the penis. After black men were lynched, often for having (presumed or trumped up) sexual relations with white women, the lynched man's penis was sometimes cut off his body to be a prized trophy for the racist mob leaders, thus linking the various aspects of the piece. I included my research texts and encouraged reading about these subjects and their strange and coincidental interrelationships. -- back to home page--