The ontology of the ready-made always has a controversial meaning compared to that of traditional art. The Mona Lisa da Vinci, for example, is a work that is based on the process of creation, virtuosity or know-how of the artist. We do not question its status, its actuality, the moment at which this work exists. Conversely, Bottle rack by Duchamp, the first strict and publicized ready-made, was not made by the artist (1).

Duchamp simply selected this object claiming that it is a work of art. On the one hand, Duchamp’s will surprises by its triviality by highlighting an everyday object. On the other hand, a bottle rack remains in the context of an artistic exhibition an object offered for contemplation. Balancing between the dimension of art and non-art, the ready-made therefore calls into question the status of the creative act and occupies the place of an object through an idea of the artist. However, the question that arises is to know what is the mode of existence of the ready-made or what this work consists of.
I will focus my reflection on the notion of immanence of a work by Genette according to which the ready-made corresponds to the ideal object of immanence. Genette makes a distinction between the constitutive properties and the contingent properties of a work. The constitutive properties are those of the object of immanence which refers to a unique mode of existence. On the other hand, the contingent properties are those of the object of manifestation which can take very diverse forms. Some works are always physical objects that are manifested by themselves. The Venus de Milo work, for example, consists of a block of marble that is still the same thing. To this category also belong painting, architecture, photography. Other works have two modes of existence which are ideal immanence and physical manifestation. For example, a mode of existence in a novel by Alexandre Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo, is a text and its manifestation is a book. A musical work also consists of a musical text and it can be manifested by a vocal or instrumental performance.
According to Genette, the existence of the ready-made is therefore twofold and consists of a physical manifestation and an ideal existence. In this respect, one must ask oneself whether the ready-made corresponds to material objects or to individual ideal objects. This statement will revolve around the Goodmanian distinction of works with the notion of different authenticity. Outside of this context of conceptual reduction, we must also reflect on a mode of conceptual reception. It is necessary to know if the reception of the concept can be based on a universal descriptive operation or if it rests on a mental operation which each one should carry out by oneself.

The conceptual reduction

In defining the regime of immanence of the ready-made, Genette starts from two conceptual attempts. The first declares an object a work of art by the simple choice of artist. By reformulating an illustration of Danto, the work of art Bottlerack or Porte-bouteilles by Duchamp consists of this commercial bottle rack (2). In other words, Duchamp proposes this bottle rack as a work of art. We can therefore infer that the artistic is not part of the aesthetic since Duchamp chose this object to discourage the aesthetic experience of the viewer. The second conceptual attempt holds that a work of art is the gesture that an artist proposes to make an object a work of art. In this case, Duchamp’s bottle-holder object does not constitute the work in question, but is defined as a means of proposition. Therefore, even if the purpose of the readymade is anti-aesthetic, the possibility of an aesthetic character can be inferred from the act of proposition.
The spectator who finds aesthetic qualities in a bottle rack can declare that the gesture of the artist can be ignored. If this is indeed the case, the gesture is therefore not founding in the aesthetic appreciation of a work. In defending the second interpretation, Genette points out that if one judges Duchamp’s Bottle Rack as a beautiful object, the exhibition of this object results in an incoherent exhibition. If we consider a bottle holder as a work of art, Duchamp is not responsible for its aesthetic qualities. Credit for its invention should be attributed to its true creator (3). This amounts to the absence of the correspondence defined by Michaud between judgment of taste and artistic qualities (4). If it happens that the perceived effect is not the effect intended by the artist, the appreciation of the art object leads to an erroneous judgment. For example, someone may find the Mona Lisa primitive, or may appreciate a cliche as something inventive. It is even possible to evaluate works without regard to their desired qualities, but this corresponds more to a mode of relating to art than to the general appreciation of a work of art.
The fact that Duchamp’s bottle rack is exhibited in two copies confirms the meaning of the artist’s act of the ready-made (5). From two indistinguishable objects, both can also be works of art. In other words, any bottle rack can become a work of art as long as an artist produces an artistic gesture. The question that arises is whether the gesture is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the ready-made. To answer this question, Genette observes several hypotheses that reduce the artistic value of the ready-made to the description of the art object and to a subject that exhibits it.
The first hypothesis, illustrated by Binkley, replaces the art object with the descriptive element that gives us a better knowledge of the work (6). However, the contemplation of the art object has no meaning since the description is enough to understand a work. For example, the Bottle Rack by Duchamp is an object composed solely of a galvanized iron bottle rack (approximately 64 x 42 cm). Genette rejects this definition because he not only avoids qualifying Duchamp’s act in an aesthetic relationship but also considers that Duchamp “is nothing but a merry joker” (7). The legitimacy of the ready-made is often questioned and requires another approach.
The other interpretation of Duchamp’s gesture underlines the importance of the subject in the act of the artist. We can admit that if a stranger tried to expose a bottle rack, probably no one would have paid attention to this artistic act. Conversely, the phrase “Duchamp exhibits a commercial bottle rack” already implies the aesthetic significance of an event. The problem is that one cannot discern the value of a ready-made if it suffices that it be designed by Duchamp. Here Duchamp’s gesture and the exhibited object play a minor role. Genette concludes that the status of the author, the act of exhibiting and the object exhibited are equally important in the composition of a work of art. To consider the ready-made as a work of art, one must rely on these factors as a whole.
Another argument that refutes the reduction of the ready-made to the gesture of the artist consists in showing that one cannot reduce the mode of existence of the ready-made to a functioning of the object. The substitution of the question “What is the ready-made?” by the Goodman’s question “When are we in the presence of the ready-made” is not relevant in the ontological sense for the following reasons. According to Rochlitz, if it is thus possible to call works of art non-aesthetic objects that function as works of art, we escape any notion of the quality of the art object (8). Under this dimension, it is irrelevant whether a work of art is good or bad since all description of the object is completely replaced by the intention of the author. In this sense, a mode of symbolizing the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack only implies a desire to create a work. What opposes this intentional object is its ontological insufficiency. Duchamp’s will “…to make a work is not a criterion of art or artistic quality, any more than the will to tell the truth does not guarantee the reliability of an assertion” (9). A bottle rack that has artistic ambitions may not become a work of art.
Genette also insists on the fact that we must leave the function of the intentional object outside of its definition. According to him, “the intentionally constitutive function of an artefact is not constant” (10). A bottle rack can be used, for example, as a coat rack or a shoe rack, unrelated to its main function. Now, the mode of existence of a bottle rack is always maintained immutable, while its function is always virtually variable. If the function of an object cannot be reduced to the mode of existence of the ready-made, it must be abandoned for the definition of the ontological status of the ready-made.
We can therefore say that the act of proposing the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack is not yet the artistic object to be considered. What offers sufficient reception in the conceptual mode of the ready-made does not result from a simple description of the object but from a definition of the concept. In this context, an act of the artist is defined by the idea of this act which refers to a concept. This comparison will help us to better distinguish the ready-made from the industrial object. Duchamp’s bottle rack is not a material support since it has its concept as an artistic act. In other words, from two physically indistinguishable bottle holders, one becomes a work through a different mode of conceptual presentation.

Ideality of the concept

Extracting the concept of the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack thus consists in reducing this bottle rack to the act of presenting this object as a work, and this gesture itself to its concept. Within this theoretical framework, the main question that must be addressed is what constitutes the ideality of the concept.
Genette indicates that the concept can manifest itself indefinitely in all its occurrences or in all its correct exemplars, but it is not identical to that of a work of literary text or musical composition (11). To examine the question of concept identity, Genette uses Goodman’s theoretical notion of the distinction between autographic and allographic works. Autographic arts are arts that are based on the notion of authenticity, that is to say that the copy of an autographic work can be considered as a counterfeit. Counterfeiting Mona Lisa is possible by producing just a copy of the painting. Conversely, counterfeiting for allographic arts is impossible since the copy of such arts constitutes the copy of a work. Any copy of the Count of Monte-Cristo would never be more than a new copy of the book. In this case, an allographic work is not defined by the production history of a work. By reading The Counte of Monte Cristo, I do not realize a kind of genealogy of the production of the book. But if I look at the portrait of Louis XIV in coronation costume, I imagine how this portrait amused the royal family in the Palace of Versailles in the past.
Inspired by Goodman, Frédérique Pouillaude in Le Désoeuvrement Choréographique defines three criteria to distinguish between autographic and allographic works:
1) Is the forgery of the object absurd or not? If so, the work is allographic, if not autographic.
2) Is the work based on a division between essential properties and contingent properties? If so, it is allographic, if not, autographic.
3) Is the identity of the work independent or not of the material history of its production? If so, the work is allographic, if not, autographic (12).
Trying to apply these criteria to the ready-made, one will receive a positive response for all three. First of all, counterfeiting the ready-made is absurd. The proof that can be given is the exhibition of replicas of Duchamp’s bottle rack in the three museums in the United States and Europe. If I find a bottle holder, resembling Duchamp’s, and assign it to the ready-made made by Duchamp, I will never do anything but produce a new correct copy of the work. Faced with this argument, the critic would say that the replicas of the Duchamp’s Bottlerack do not eliminate the possibility of counterfeiting, since they are made by Duchamp himself. In other words, you can still forge a Duchamp signature. To respond to this objection, I would specify that the signature or the name on Duchamp’s Bottle rack is a constitutive property of a work that can be manifested in different ways. If Duchamp personally offered me his unsigned ready-made Bottle rack, I would still consider it a Duchamp’s bottle-holder. In this case, Duchamp’s signature takes its form through the artist’s verbal agreement. Duchamp’s name, which is part of the concept of the ready-made, can be dictated (“I declare that this is a Duchamp’s bottle-holder”), noted on the description plate of the Duchamp’s Bottle-holder or written on the physical object of the ready-made.
Another counter-argument is the following. If counterfeiting the readymade were absurd, contemporary art museums could exhibit any readymade by the artist without his permission. However, it is necessary to distinguish between counterfeiting and copyright. If I bring a bottle holder identical to the Duchamp’s bottle holder to the museum, the museum will not have the copyrighted right to display it as the Duchamp’s Bottle rack. This rule applies to all allographic works that are protected by copyright, including literary and musical works.
Then, the ready-made is obviously based on a division between constitutive properties and contingent properties. While the constitutive properties consist of a title of Bottle Rack, characteristics of this visual object and an artist name Marcel Duchamp, the contingent properties rely on the interpretation of the bottle rack object. If a bottle rack by Duchamp became a literary text, the content of this book Bottle rack will emerge through the bottle rack illustration and its description. Now this book will prescribe not only the type of font that one should use for its printing, but the acuity of the description that one should use to describe the physical object. Even the person in charge of materializing the ready-made from this book corresponds to the contingent property. Apart from Duchamp, each person can produce a new copy of the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack. It follows that the identity of the ready-made is not part of a physical object and can be preserved independently of its execution. This division between the physical object and the concept has the consequence of making the identification of the ready-made an allographic work.
An autographic work is always attached to the digital identity, that is to say the distinction between the original and its copy. Even if this work undergoes the change of its constitutive properties (the loss of colors, the random spots), it would remain digitally the same. Conversely, the identity of an allographic work goes hand in hand with a purely specific form. If we changed the constitutive properties of an allographic work, we would produce another work. It would be no problem if Duchamp’s bottle racks were distinguished by small nuances, for example by the decorative element. However, this will not be an extreme and visual deviation because it would lead to the disagreement of the idea of a work. If Duchamp were not basing his choice on a reaction of visual indifference, he would choose a bottle rack such as that of Black Blum, which one could admire for its aesthetic beauty.

The digital identity of the ready-made is subject to modification, even with the change of the title of a work or the name of the author. The same object of Duchamp’s bottle rack would be another work, if instead of Bottle rack it were called, for example, The coat rack. Similarly, Duchamp’s bottle holder is not identical to that of the anonymous artist’s bottle holder, even if these two objects are indistinguishable. It follows that the concept is stated as a constitutive property of Duchamp’s bottle-holder, since the change of digital identity of a work stems from the change of each element of the concept (of the title of a work, of the description of the idea and the author of this idea).
The identity of allographic works is not based on the material history of production because of this division between constitutive properties and contingent properties. In this sense, one can preserve Duchamp’s bottle rack independently of its multiple executions and interpretations. It follows that when looking at the Duchamp’s Bottle rack, one does not need to be sure that it is original or whether properties of this object agree precisely with the properties of the bottle rack when viewing it. I simply need to make sure that “Marcel Duchamp” as a name has entered into the description of a work. Under the description of a work, I mean a plate on which we describe the name of the artist, the title, the dimensions and the concept of a work.
We can therefore define the regime of immanence of the ready-made as an allographic regime. The identity of the ready-made is always based on a division between the essential as the conceptual description and the contingent as a physical object. However, Genette insists on the fact that this scheme is not simply allographic, but rather hyper-allographic by being more abstract and generic than that of an allographic work. To grasp the degree of abstraction, illustrated by Genette, we must now compare the conceptual reduction of the ready-made with that of an allographic work. According to Genette, the conceptual reduction of an allographic work and a conceptual work is double, but there is a small difference in the second operation (13). For example, The Void by Georges Perec was reduced to two stages: a first reduction makes it possible to pass from the book to the text and a second reduction consists in reducing this text to the fact of being lipogram without E. That is the letter E is missing in this text. The same conceptual reduction could occur, for example, from Dumas’ Count of Monte-Cristo. Nevertheless, Genette emphasizes that, in the second case of the reduction, the particularity of the text of The Void is suppressed, while the constitution of a singular ideality of the literary or musical text is still relevant. The concept “Lipogram without E” to which The Void is reduced does not present any feature of the definition of a work, that is to say “Lipogram without E” is more generic than “The Void”.
In this context, I want to oppose to Genette that there is no difference in the conceptual reduction between an allographic work and a ready-made. Even if one can mark the more generic character of the concept of a lipogram, there is always a possibility for the singular ideality of the ready-made. In Duchamp’s conceptual double reduction of bottle racks, I link the object to the artist’s gesture “Duchamp exposes a bottle rack”, and from this gesture to the concept “Duchamp exposes a bottle rack to discourage aesthetic pleasure”. When we define the concept of the ready-made, we must necessarily establish a link between the object and its aesthetic function. In other words, the concept of the ready-made is always in the singular dimension by referring to the definition of the exhibited object. In the case of Duchamp’s bottle rack, any singular manifestation of an act “Duchamp exhibits a bottle rack” is not limited to the concept “Duchamp exhibits a bottle rack to discourage aesthetic pleasure”, but rather becomes more precise and is individualized. Therefore, the effect of the reduction of the ready-made is the same as that of a literary or musical text.
We must now examine how a physical object of the ready-made can free itself into an external ideality, a second mode of existence of a work. The question of the evolution of a work is well developed in Frédéric Pouillaude by being in search of the identity of dance among autographic and allographic works (14). Pouillaude indicates that the sharing between autography and allography can cross the same art. For example, music in “classical” practice is allographic, while Coltrane’s jazz improvisation refers to autographic identity. All the singular effects of Coltrane’s saxophone remain foreign to the notational code. In this sense, the autography of jazz relates to a singular performance of an artist. An allographic work can begin by being autographic if its identity makes it possible to make a demarcation between the constitutive and the contingent. However, what transcends the limitations of time and the individual is the informal classification of the performances in action, namely a notational code. In this case, a musical work becomes allographic as soon as the notation is established. The notation constitutes the life of the work outside the object which also corresponds to the mode of existence of a work. By opposing the mode of immanence, we call such an existence the transcendence of a work.
Pouillaude maintains that notation is a strict condition of allography. Once fixed on paper, the work is transmitted and freed from its material history of production. Here the ready-made, like an allographic work, is preserved in writing. The description of the concept that can be seen as a small plaque in a museum serves to provide a sufficient condition to construct the regime of immanence of the ready-made without reference to the physical object.

It must be said that the description of a work also assigns the ready-made to its genre. Without a descriptive plate, a bottle rack is just a bottle dryer. It does not yet belong to either autography or allography. Once it refers by description to an artistic gesture, a bottle rack becomes a work of art in a regime of immanence. At the same time, the ideality of this work becomes perfectly determined as exterior since its reception can extend far beyond the presence of this object. Consequently, the description of the ready-made is the constitutive element of two identity regimes: that of immanence and transcendence. In other words, the description of the ready-made does not divide between the immanence and the transcendence of the art object, but gives rise to a coexistence of two possible identity regimes in parallel.

The modes of reception of the concept

The reception of the concept refers to the controversial subject which relates to the complex relationship between the artistic and the aesthetic. We can obviously note that the conceptual reception is not always relevant because of this difficulty in the perception of the ready-made. It is difficult to know the intention of the artist by just looking at the object of the ready-made. For example, one can admire the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack and urinal for their aesthetic beauty or appreciate them without a concept. As Genette puts it, “Ignorance or indifference to intentions have their rights, and again everyone is free to admire a urinal or smile at a jumble of drippings” (15). Here Genette opposes the universal reception of the artist’s intention. According to him, the variability of conceptual perception has three consequences.
The first consequence: the description of a work cannot be a more adequate manifestation than its execution. If everyone is free to define the concept of a work ignoring the intention of the author, the appreciation of the conceptual description is meaningless. Referring to Binkley, Genette denounces the reception of the description of the art object since “…in this respect it is rather unfortunate that visitors to the Arensberg collection of the Philadelphia museum know in advance what awaits them there. (16). For visitors who know the artist’s intention of a work without having seen it, it’s like a good or bad gag. It may well be that the descriptive element like “Duchamp’s Bottle Rack is an object composed solely of a galvanized iron bottle rack (approximately 64 x 42 cm)”, but it will tell us nothing from the artistic point of view.
I will approach this assertion from the following angle. Binkley’s subject concerns the deprivation of the object of the artistic value of the ready-made by the description of the properties of the object. We can obviously move away from this extremity, by saying that the exposition of the dimensions of the art object is a manifestation of the description without an art object. If we posit notation as a work of art, we ignore any regime of immanence of the ready-made. Therefore, the reduction of the conceptual art object to its description does not appear relevant. Yet, apart from the description, there is always the possibility of manifesting the concept of a work of art. One can claim attention to the three dimensions of the ready-made at the same time: to the visual object, to the detail of the physical object and to the descriptive concept. In this case, if we talk about the concept of art, we must explain the motivation of the artist, his idea or the history of artistic creation. In this regard, there is no inconsistency if we add to the usual exhibition of Fountain by Duchamp a plaque with the description of the concept.

Fountain of Duchamp with the descriptive element
A plate with the description of the concept

I see no reason why visitors to the Philadelphia Museum’s Arensberg Collection should be disappointed or confused when looking at this Fountain concept plate. Conversely, the description of the concept serves to facilitate conceptual reception, which becomes unsuitable without such clarification. The conceptual gesture is not like a good or bad gag, but the definitive manifestation of the ready-made.
In this regard, Genette would obviously answer that:

The conceptual gesture is by definition (more or less) reducible to its concept, but it is not up to it to say why, how much, or how. Duchamp knew it well, but it is not Duchamp who wants (17).

Initially, one can wonder about the fact that Duchamp did not want to explain his idea of the creation of Fountain. Following the exhibition, Duchamp published a series of articles under the title “The Richard Mutt case” to respond to the accusation of plagiarism (18). He writes that it is the choice of artist that is important, not the making of something with one’s own hands. Richard Mutt (the pseudonym of Duchamp) chose an ordinary urinal to show that the idea prevails over the creation. Moreover, at the beginning of the first show, the committee of the American Society refused to Richard Mutt, taking his object for a joke. The jury knew nothing of this work: neither why nor how he had conceived it. The majority of the members of society saw the immoral and vulgar object, a commercial piece belonging to the art of the plumber. Since the jury based its judgment on the physical properties of the urinal, its assessment of Fountain results in an erroneous judgment.
According to Michaud, even if Duchamp claimed that it is the viewers who make the paintings, it is in fact the artist-viewer couple who make the works (19). On the one hand, the aesthetic experience is produced by the artistic qualities imposed on the object, on the other hand, it is given via a perceptual experience which is both direct and universal. Because the perceptual experience is correlative to the work, the value is conceived as an objective cause of this experience. Yet what distinguishes Michaud’s objectivism from the realist position is the relativization of evaluations in each local group of experience. In other words, the spectator’s perception relativizes this objectivism by entering into the game of language. A Duchamp’s urinal, for example, has no other value than for a group or a particular person who has a particular experience of this work. If I tried to appreciate it, I would have no choice but to enter the language game of the ready-made and learn the criteria to which they correspond. Here, the value is a value relative to the ready-made which poses an authority to which the other spectators can conform. On the one hand, this conformity consists in supporting the acceptance of relativism. On the other hand, the particular values of the ready-made are objectively inscribed in the works of Duchamp and other conceptual artists.
If the conceptual reduction were to be carried out solely by the spectator, one could not escape the complete relativism of taste and each could express the claims of his own subjectivity. However, concordance between the two sets of qualities is not guaranteed. Taste as a result of learning is not innate or natural. For this reason, we need to posit the process of aesthetic judgment formation, which is learning to match an appropriate reaction to appropriate qualities. The true aesthetic experience is a convergence between the desired effect and a certain artistic quality. Mastery of artistic rules and mastery of the response to contemporary art objects is the lesson of the experience that everyone can have of the formation and evolution of their personal tastes. Taste is standardized through complex apprenticeships that include comparison, extensive experience, the intervention of others’ points of view.
This brings us closer to Walton’s position that aesthetic judgments about art are either true or false, and determinable (19). Essentially, Walton argues that the true value of aesthetic judgments about art is a function, on the one hand, of the perceptual properties of a work of art, and, on the other, of the perceived status of such perceptual properties. as to how a work is perceived in its exact artistic category. “Guernica is a failure” seems an adequate judgment if viewed as an Impressionist painting, since its cubic forms will then be perceived as anti-norm, but it is an incorrect judgment if viewed as a Cubist painting. But is this statement really true or really false? Walton’s philosophical claim is that it depends on the perceived status of perceptual properties when Guernica is perceived in its actual category. The four relevant circumstances for it to be correct to perceive Guernica as a Cubist painting are (i) that it possesses sufficient standard Cubist properties, (ii) that it is better perceived as a Cubist painting, (iii) ) that Picasso expected it to be perceived as Cubist, (iv) that the Cubist category was well established and recognized in the society where the work was produced. However, to perceive Guernica in the appropriate category requires knowledge of Cubism and of how to classify a work as a Cubist work, i.e. skills and the practice.

In the same way, for our appreciation of Fountain, the knowledge and the experience of the spectator are essential. Duchamp obviously wanted us to perceive his work as the ready-made since it is better perceived as a conceptual work. To perceive Fountain as an abstract work or as a work in other categories would mean taking away from Duchamp his artistic work. Furthermore, conceptual reduction requires a knowledge of the concept so that our appreciation of the ready-made goes deeper than the mere enjoyment of the shapes and colors of the art object.
Genette points out the second consequence of conceptual reception which refers to the instability of the perceptual mode (21). According to him, when we go back from the object to the act and from the act to the concept, we generate several attitudes of reception. It follows that the conceptual state is not a constituent regime on which one can rely universally, as is the conceptual state of an allographic work. Since each spectator chooses his mode of conceptual reception, a work of the ready-made cannot belong to an artistic practice by virtue of a consensus within the local language game. It follows that there is no ready-made art in general, but only specific ready-made works. To raise an objection to this reasoning, I will return to the preceding debate on the identity of the concept that Genette calls too abstract. If we are going to agree on the fact that the regime of immanence of the ready-made is not more generic than that of the poem or a sonata, this mode can be constructed in the same institutional terms as an allographic work. We cannot deny that the language game of the ready-made already exists within which judgment becomes more complex and standardized. If we aim to rationalize the judgment of taste of the ready-made, we must rely on the conceptual reception of a work that can be stable and universal. Anyway, the variety of reception attitudes of the ready-made does not mean that the uniqueness of the conceptual mode is irrelevant. A fluctuating relationship between artist intent and audience attention is unique to other art communication systems. One can even notice the differences within the fine art language game. For example, there is enormous divergence as to the reasons that lead us to define Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix as a masterpiece. But that does not mean that a work of fine art is about the instability of the perceptual mode.
Finally, Genette presents the last consequence relating to the aesthetic function of the conceptual work (22). He does not admit that the conceptual work is exhaustible in its function, that is to say, the conceptual reduction of a work does not lead to an effect of its concept. In this, the conceptual work can please or displease without concept and without end. Now, Genette refers to Kant, who excludes any determined concept in aesthetic judgment. In other words, the beautiful Kantian is not a concept definable by our understanding. However, this reduction of the aesthetic judgment of contemporary art to the categories of classical aesthetics seems to me incoherent. The arts are no longer the fine arts. The idea of contemporary art has transformed with the proliferation of artistic forms and experiences. Therefore, the postmodern situation requires another approach in the definition of art, especially the ready-made. Bottle Rack or Fountain challenge us to base our aesthetic judgment on the conceptual dimension of a work that can exclusively interpret an action by Duchamp. In this case, the function of the concept may consist in the legitimization of Duchamp’s gesture which denounces the myth of the artistic profession. If the public does not know what ready-made artists want to say or what they mean, it is a suspension not only of the conceptual function of a work, but also of any aesthetic object intended by the artist. If a ready-made work pleases or displeases without a concept, it is no longer a conceptual work, but an artefact. If a Bottle Rack by Duchamp pleases me as a bottle holder, there is no complete conceptual reception in my aesthetic judgment. I could identify a gesture of Duchamp as “exposing a bottle holder”, but this gesture is not exhaustive in the sense of the definition of the concept. It follows that if one speaks of the consequence of the conceptual reduction of the ready-made one must necessarily rely on its defined and consciously grasped concept.

Conclusion

In his proposal for a theory of aesthetic relationship, Genette is very close to Kantian subjectivism, which is based on the feeling of the subject affected by the representation of the object (23). Such a position expresses a relativism, because each appreciation is relative to the subjectivity of each viewer, and it draws diversity from the disagreements of the assessors. However, Genette sees no possibility of objective criteria or rational approaches in aesthetic appreciation, since its pure relativization destroys the objective value of a work. If anyone can judge a work from any criterion, art becomes “anything” in the sense of artistic work without rules. With Genette, the only a priori principle is the subjectivity of the assessor who adopts an objective attitude towards him. Looking at the Duchamp’s Bottle Rack, the appreciator may like the bottle holder since he judges it as a beautiful thing. His motive for liking it, whatever it is, is enough to say it’s a genuine aesthetic judgment. It follows that it is the viewer who makes the work and it is he or she who validates or not the artist’s proposal. Genette supports this principle, elaborated by Duchamp, through all his reflection on the ontology of the ready-made.
Genette’s subjectivism represents the idea of ready-made art as a hyper-allographic, unstable and variable concept. In other words, given the elusive nature of the concept, we do not know exactly what Duchamp means. Even if Duchamp’s bottle holder consists of the idea of exposing a bottle holder, this idea remains undefined and open. It is on this ontological notion that I separate myself from Genette. The problem is that this notion does not answer the question “When does a Duchamp’s bottle rack exist?” », but poses the difficulty with the abstraction of the concept of the ready-made. Because of the possible deviation from Duchamp’s concept, the definition of a work takes on multiple faces. If one justifies the appreciation of Duchamp’s bottle rack as an artefact or as the conceptually different ready-made of a work by Duchamp, one changes the digital identity of a work. Like an object of allographic immanence, the ready-made must become other with a change in the constitutive properties. If we exclude this alterity, we exclude the specific identity of the ready-made.
To get out of this impasse, we must rely on the concept of the ready-made as a constitutive property. If one accepts that Duchamp’s bottle rack consists of an allographic idea, one must accept its existence in the form of conceptual description. Here, the concept of the ready-made is defined as that of a literary or musical work. To say that the conceptual reception is not an adequate manifestation of its execution is inconsistent. The concept can be defined and stable if we want it to be. It is in the interest of the viewer and the artist. For the viewer, the defined concept serves to facilitate the justification of the judgment and evaluation of a work. For the artist, the defined concept that is exposed to an audience avoids the possibility of misunderstanding between the viewer and the artist. In the aesthetic relation of the ready-made, the concept is a fundamental link between the properties of a work of art and the psychological and/or physiological dispositions of the subject. In this, if it is the spectator who makes a work, he makes it in the sense of the conjunction of a visual object with a concept of the artist. Even if the ready-made artist is not able to estimate the aesthetic result of his work, he gives us anyway the outline of a work as a concept from which our aesthetic experience is universally constructed.

References:

(1) It’s about Duchamp’s Bottle Rack made in 1914.
(2) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 210.
(3) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p.214.
(4) Yves MICHAUD, Critères esthétiques et jugement de goût, op. cit., p.38.
(5) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 215.
(6) Ibid. p.216.
(7) Ibid. p.217.
(8) Rainer ROCHLITZ, Subversion et Subvention, p. 93.
(9) Ibid. p. 92.
(10) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, p. 18.
(11) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, p.232.
(12) Frédéric POUILLAUDE, Le Désoeuvrement Choréographique, op. cit., p. 245.
(13) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, p. 232.
(14) Frédéric POUILLAUDE, Le Désoeuvrement Choréographique, op. cit., p. 258-263.
(15) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 231.
(16) Ibid. p. 237.
(17) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 237.
(18) On this point see http://mediation.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-duchamp/ens-duchamp.htm#image4.
(19) Yves MICHAUD, Critères esthétiques et jugement de goût, p.18.
(20) Kendal WALTON, « Categories of Art », p. 338-339.
(21) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 237-38.
(22) Ibid. p. 239.
(23) Gérard GENETTE, L’OEuvre de l’art, op. cit., p. 557.