Debate over the authenticity and resale value of various Duchampian urinals — copies, appropriations, relics or forgeries — reveals anxieties around the art market that would otherwise have remained latent. If, as Reuters columnist Felix Salmon points out, the “market” determines the price of a work of art, then these earthenware replicas of working plumbing are worth whatever collectors will pay for them. However, if the artist’s (or estate’s) certification is required to transform a urinal into a Fountain, what then?

Duchamp, we recall, was an occasional art dealer, but not a forger. Is that relevant?

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