WashingtonTimes.com – By Deborah K. Dietsch
Marcel Duchamp assumed wildly different identities throughout his career to question the idea of authorship and provoke the viewer. The French-born artist signed an overturned urinal with the pseudonym “R. Mutt” and called it art. He appeared before the camera in drag as Rose Selavy (translation: “Rose, c’est la vie” or “Rose, that’s life”) and cited his female alter ego as an artistic collaborator. He billed himself as George W. Welch on a lithograph resembling a wanted poster for a criminal.