“If I were a frog I’d live in a fountain”: The very title of Bethan Huws’s recent exhibition told a little story. But this was no fairy tale—the idea of a frog who is really an enchanted prince waiting to be transformed by a kiss holds no interest for her. If she were a frog (or a Frenchman?) she’d be wide-awake and sitting precisely where Marcel Duchamp began his role-playing game with the readymade—namely, in the “fountain.”

In 2007, Huws made a neon work bearing the words AU FOND DU CERVEAU IL Y A UNE FONTAINE. In 2009, he made a version featuring the English translation—AT THE