A snow shovel was probably the first work tool turned into a work of art, in Marcel Duchamp's New York studio in 1915. It was about questioning the status of the artistic object from a perspective that complied with the modern demand that the art was proper of its time, of its historical moment. The provocative and burlesque spirit of Duchamp was used by Claes Oldenburg to, from the pop tradition, represent everyday utensils (shovels, hammers, saws, spoons...) with a diagrammatic aspect, an exaggerated scale and a denatured context that sought to cause some confusion in the viewer that will force him to reflect on his relationship with culture and art.

Sometimes extreme situations serve to spur the human imagination. At the beginning of the 20th century, some men from the city of Valencia, fed up with starving themselves and their families, decide to seek their fortune (or at least eat), settling in the 30s of the last century in some barracks next to the gola del Perellonet, and decide to dedicate themselves to elver fishing. They were the first in Spain to have that idea, and to carry it out they devised a unique artifact of its kind: the monot.