Stolen with meaning: on readymades and appropriation in art

Noticed the football sculpture by Klas Barbrosson on the stairs outside Sveavägen 65? It's an artwork part of an art style called readymade. But what is readymade, and what makes art art? Learn about how a urinal revolutionized the art world and what happens when an artist points to a store-bought object and says, “This is art”. Come listen to John Peter Nilsson, former director of Moderna museet Malmö on Thursday, March 27, 12:15-13 in the Jacob Dahlgren room – a room consisting of readymades.

Starttid: 2025-03-27 at 12:15

Sluttid: 2025-03-27 at 13:00

Plats: The Jacob Dahlgren Room, (room 542)

Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998

John Peter Nilsson writes:

'What happens when an artist points to a store-bought object and says, “This is art”? Or when they take a famous image and twist it into something new? Welcome to the world of readymades and appropriation in visual art - two concepts that flipped the art world upside down. It all started in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal to an art exhibition, titled it Fountain, and called it art. Think Andy Warhol’s soup cans or Sherrie Levine re-photographing famous photographs. Appropriation isn’t just borrowing—it’s about rethinking. Both readymades and appropriation force us to reconsider what art is. Sometimes, it’s not about creating something new - it’s about seeing what’s already there, differently.'

John Peter Nilsson is currently communicative museum strategist at Moderna museet in Stockholm. He has previously been the director at Moderna museet in Malmö and exibition curator and programme director at Moderna. He has also worked as an independent curator for several exhibitions in Sweden and abroad, among others for The Nordic Pavilion at The Venice Biennale 1999.

Part of triptych Klas Barbrosson, SNETT/INÅT/BAKÅT (Terrorboll), 2025. Photo: Mikael Olsson.

Art Initiative