Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French-American artist who played a key role in the development of the avant-garde in New York City, where he spent the last 25 years of his life.

In the metaphysical world of Marcel Duchamp, seeing the unseen took center stage. Many art objects from the Duchampian dream factory were subliminal sexual provocations. The theater of Duchamp was a virtual striptease. There would be no orgasm, no climax, and least of all, sentiment–only artifacts of desire. Wordplay was an aphrodisiac. Duchamp turned the museum into a house of the rising sun, a place where goods were not socially acceptable.

Duchamp excavated the hidden desires of a modern world undergoing a cultural transformation. Instead of making something, he found something and hence, the artworld consecrated something. That “something” was infused with subliminal treasure that the intelligentsia found compelling.