Marcel Duchamp—1920

Rrose Sélavy is a pun in both name and form. It sounds like “Eros, c’est la vie” (“Eros, that’s life”) and masks Duchamp's authorship under a feminine alter ego. It's one of the most elaborate and sustained acts of authorial disguise in modern art.

Rrose adopts the trappings of femininity—only to undermine them. She’s too posed, too pristine, too performative. The glamour becomes exaggerated, artificial, and, in the process, parodied.

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