The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20090910173718/http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=571

TATE COLLECTION


TATE COLLECTION

Glossary home
Browse terms
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Anti-art 

Refers to art that challenges the existing accepted definitions of art. It is generally agreed to have been coined by Marcel Duchamp around 1913 when he made his first readymades, which are still regarded in some quarters as Anti-art (for example by the Stuckist group). In 1917 Duchamp submitted a urinal, titled Fountain, for an exhibition in New York, which subsequently became notorious and eventually highly influential. Anti-art is associated with Dada, the artistic and literary movement founded in Zurich in 1916 and simultaneously in New York, in which Duchamp was a central figure. Since Dada there have been many art movements that have taken a position on Anti-art, from the lo-fi Mail art movement to the YBAs, some of whom have embraced the absurdities of Dada and Duchamp’s love of irony, paradox and punning.
 

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917, replica 1964
Marcel Duchamp
Fountain
1917, replica 1964
 
Jean Arp (Hans Arp), Moustaches, circa 1925
Jean Arp (Hans Arp)
Moustaches
circa 1925
 
Sarah Lucas, The Old In Out, 1998
Sarah Lucas
The Old In Out
1998