178FOLLOWING MATERIALITYpoints in art lies in the criticality that artists develop in their relationships
with surfaces. Although readymades were first exhibited during the
second decade of the twentieth century (fig. 5.5), the influence of the
readymade art object became more apparent after the Second World War
in the hands of artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, who
recovered the Duchampian notion of the beholder, well before Michael
Fried wrote about theatricality and minimal art.^51
The important influence of readymade objects on the emergence of
animals and taxidermy in contemporary art has been largely ignored
in animal studies discourses. Baker’s theorization of the postmodern
animal, for instance, has overlooked the assonances between the aes-
thetics of some botched taxidermy and the uncanny charge of surreal-
ist objects. In the 1930s, the surrealists held two exhibitions dedicated to
objects. The first took place at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris, in 1933.
FIGURE 5.5 Marcel Duchamp, readymades on display at the Philadelphia Museum of
Art, 2009. From left, Bicycle Wheel, 1913, Bottle Rack, 1914, and Fountain, 1917. Photo-
graph courtesy of Sarah Stierch, CC BY 2.0.