Celebrating 100 Years of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and Questioning Masculinity

Celebrating 100 Years of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and Questioning Masculinity



Today is the celebration of 100 years of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and as a little inside action (although, not so inside since it was reported about in the newspaper), people could get in for free at a few museums worldwide if they said the password "R. Mutt". For the occasion M. of the Walther König Bookstore at Hamburger Bahnhof sold between 3 and 4pm this afternoon Marcel Duchamp books at the men's bathroom, or the "Herrentoilette" as they put it so nicely in German. I think it would have been cooler if the event had been inside the bathroom right next to the pissoirs. I would have liked to check it out. Actually, I don't even know if there are any pissoirs in the men's bathroom. Isn't a pissoir a very 20th century thing? I mean, why would men have two possibilities to pee and women only one, right? In the 21st century such gender inequality is no longer in vogue. Wouldn't it have been sooooooo cool if Hamburger Bahnhof for the birthday of the Fountain had opened its first unisex toilet?! Duchamp was very queer - he would have loved it! What about it, Mr. Kittelmann? 

By the way, in the bookstore I bought the newest book by Grayson Perry, titled The Descent of Man. It starts with a nice quote by Gloria Steinem: "The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off." The topic happens to fit perfectly with what I addressed above. "Examining masculinity," so Grayson Perry, "can seem like a luxury problem, a pastime for a wealthy, well-educated peaceful society, but I would argue the opposite: the poorer, the more underdeveloped, the more uneducated a society is, the more masculinity needs realigning with the modern world, because masculinity is holding back that society. All over the globe, crimes are committed, wars are started, women are being held back, and economies are disastrously  distorted by men, because of their outdated version of masculinity."



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