What is Marcel Duchamp?
{{Infobox artist | name = Marcel Duchamp | image = Rue Marcel-Duchamp, Paris 13-2.jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Rue Marcel-Duchamp, Paris 13e. | birth_name = Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1887|7|28}} | birth_place = [[Blainville-Crevon]], France | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1968|10|2|1887|7|28}} | death_place = [[Neuilly-sur-Seine]], France | nationality = French, became a U.S. citizen in 1955 | field = [[Painting]], [[sculpture]], film | training = | movement = [[Dada]], [[Surrealism]] | works = ''Nude Descending a Staircase, #2'' (1912)<br>''Fountain'' (1917)<br>''The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even'' (1915-23)<br>''Etant donnés'' (1946-66) | patrons = | awards = }} [[File:Marcel Duchamp.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Fountain'', exhibited as made, with R.Mutt, 1917 painted on it. The message presumably was: anything an artist calls art, '''is''' art.]] [[File:Label for the Belle Haleine cropped.png|thumb|right|200px|Portrait of Duchamp as 'Rrose Sélavy', by the surrealist [[Man Ray]]. Notice that 'Sélavy' sounds like ''C'est la vie'' (that's life!).]] '''Marcel Duchamp''' (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the [[Dada]]ist and [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] movements. Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as [[Peggy Guggenheim]] and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.<ref>Tomkins: ''Duchamp: a biography''.</ref> A playful man, Duchamp challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal art and naming it ''Fountain''. This approach would 50 years later be called [[conceptual art]], though he himself used the term 'ready-mades' for this idea. He produced relatively few artworks, wh