This work, almost humorous in nature, echoes René Magritte’s iconic painting The Treachery of Images. Also heavily inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, it aims to question the very nature of art, and of the ready-made in particular.

Despite its clear resemblance to The Treachery of Images, this piece raises a question that remains unresolved more than a century after Fountain. If Magritte’s pipe is merely a representation of a pipe, then what is a ready-made? An object placed, isolated, almost elevated, why could that be considered art?

Does the simple act of choosing an object and designating it as a work suffice to make it art? And more importantly: if we strip a pipe of its function and begin to regard it as a work of art, is it still a pipe? Or does it become something else?

The questioning goes beyond the object itself. Does something become art the moment we assign it that function?
Or is art already all around us, and the artist’s role merely to guide the viewer’s gaze in order to reveal it?