Phoebe: Hi, I’m Phoebe. I’m 10 years old.
Sarah: And I'm Sarah. We are here in front of Marcel Duchamp’s In Advance of a Broken Arm.
Phoebe: I don’t think this is art. You could buy this at the hardware store across the street.
Sarah: And he did! He went out to the store, and he bought this, and he called these artworks “readymades.” What do you think of when you hear the word “readymade”?
Phoebe: It’s already made. You don’t really have to do a lot. But I have mixed feelings about it because it’s not really giving art vibes.
Sarah: Duchamp was more interested in the idea that was communicated through the sculpture than what it actually looked like or was. What does In Advance of a Broken Arm make you think of?
Phoebe: Maybe he had a shovel, and he was like shoveling stuff, and then he shoveled it up and somehow broke an arm.
Sarah: It makes me think of having to go out and shovel in the snow and that you could hurt yourself doing that. So I think the title is making a story about what might happen with it.
Phoebe: Personally, I’d like it more if it was called, “The Brown and Silver Shovel that I Got at the Hardware Store.”
Sarah: Because that explains the process of how he made the work of art?
Phoebe: Yeah.
Sarah: Duchamp used materials that any ordinary person had access to. So one thing he might be asking us is who gets to be an artist?
Phoebe: Well then, anyone can, really.