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In the 1960s, Danto "got bowled over by Pop Art," a movement that embraced the brash visual imagery of consumer culture. An encounter with Andy Warhol's Brillo Box in 1964 at the Stable Gallery in New York inspired him to write on the new movement--but for philosophers. "I thought, If that's possible [for a Brillo box to be perceived as art], anything is possible. It then occurred to me that I could write philosophically about this," he recalls. Danto was intrigued by the problematic relationship of the two Brillo boxes--the "real" Brillo box and Warhol's Brillo Box installation. Since the Brillo boxes look identical, Danto wondered, what makes one a work of art? This question led Danto to write his first book on art, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace.

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