Izvirnik

In 1917 the Society of Independent Artists in New York put on a large exhibition; the only work its committee rejected was a urinal titled Fountain and signed R. Mutt, later attributed to the famous Marcel Duchamp. In this novel Richard Mutt is a thoughtful erudite and Duchamp his plagiarist. Some years later the Slovenian emigrant Janez Bolčina joins Mutt's circle in Philadelphia, and shortly before his death he passes the truth about this key work of modern art to a young art historian, a doctoral student at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. Set in different places and decades of the twentieth century, partly on real events and partly on conjecture, the story weaves in reflections on the meaning of art, the pioneers of the avant-garde and the behind-the-scenes appropriation of art by political and financial power.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

249 pages in the original

Set in

United States, Slovenia

First published

2019 by Mladinska knjiga

Author's age

53 when first published

ISBN

9789610155126 (original)