Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a leading figure of the Surrealist and Dada art movements. His introduction of the readymade into gallery spaces negated the very definition of fine art. The display of banal, mass-produced articles such as hair combs, bicycle wheels and bottle racks, eroded the boundaries between commercial value and aesthetic worth. The genius of Duchamp’s practice positioned him at the fore of the modernist avant-garde and his oeuvre exerted significant influence upon the development of Western art throughout the twentieth century.(National Gallery of Australia)