Marcel Duchamp and Queer-Coding

Marcel Duchamp is one of the best known Dada artists in history, having helped to pioneer the movement and starting commotions around the Western world as a result of his controversial modern artforms, including the infamous “readymade”. Many of Duchamp’s works continue to be relevant and contentious today, although the conversation is no longer centered around the validity of his works as “art”. Rather, we today view Duchamp’s body of work through a more critical lens, analyzing the symbolism and commentary contained within to catch a glimpse into the tumultuous social situation of the time. Even though the artist occasionally contested that his work was truly meaningless in classical Dada tradition (1), analyzing the cultural context around these artworks is truly revealing as to what each may be attempting to say. Especially in modern times, more and more art historians are starting to look at Duchamp’s legacy through a queer perspective, claiming the artist put intentional homosexual or otherwise queer imagery and messages in his art. While it’s fairly undeniable that these interpretations exist, this essay will seek to prove whether or not Duchamp consciously intended to queer-code these artworks, or if these are the result of modern reflections on his body of work. To do this, I will analyze queer interpretations of some of Duchamps’ artwork, discuss the cultural context in which they were made, and finally attempt to discern if Duchamp himself was, whether he publicly admitted it or not, a part of the queer community.

First, it’s important we look at those artworks that are commonly cited as being “queer-coded”, or containing queer symbolism and meanings. Most famously is his readymade Fountain, which was written extensively about in the Oxford Art Journal by Paul Franklin. In his work, Franklin heavily discussed why Duchamp’s chosen object for his bold submission to the Society of Independent Artists— a urinal— represented a homosexual perspective. At the time, critics were already interpreting Fountain as sexual, having a uterine shape and feminine curves. But a queer lens rejects this heteronormative idea, pointing away from the urinal’s physical shape to its meaning and history. At the time, for instance, French psychologists associated homosexuality with a urine fetish, and urination was often equated with fountains in dream analysis and art. The connection to Duchamp’s Fountain urinal is clear. Furthermore, public restrooms had become well-known in French society as a “hook-up” spot for gay men, with bathroom implements becoming virtually synonymous with male queerness. These restrooms were often inscribed with dates, times, and codewords indicating different desires and identities, leading gay men looking for sex on preplanned, nightly adventures to the “best” location. Such an adventure was imitated when Duchamp and his artistic companions’ (Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella) journeyed to find the perfect readymade urinal, an event that was photographed and written about by mutual friend and photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz then went on to photograph Fountain with the help and direction of Duchamp, positioning it on a pedestal such that it appears phallic in nature, as well as forcing the viewer into a lower, “subservient” position. Behind it is the homoerotic painting “The Warriors” by Marsden Hartley, a known gay artist. In this way, Fountain’s presentation and creation can both be seen as queer in nature, as is its obvious connection to homosexual streetlife in France at the time (2).

Alfred Stieglitz’s 1917 photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain

Less talked about in queer analysis is Duchamp’s magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, or, The Large Glass. Some scholars have interpreted the artwork’s rather cynical reduction of sexuality to mechanization and the separation of the bachelors from the object of their desires to be indication of Duchamp’s unrequited, incestuous longing for his sister. These details, however, can be reinterpreted to see The Large Glass as an attempt to distance oneself from heteronormativity, from mechanical, heterosexual relationships that are expected from society. The inability of the lovers to consummate their union could represent both Duchamp’s inability to accept or act on his own queer desires, or an act of resistance against the expectation that men and women must marry and have sex with one another. Duchamp himself called The Large Glass “a negation of women in the social sense, of wives and mothers.” (1). The connections between this disdain for societal heteronormativity and queer desire are clear. This trend then continued in artwork produced after The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, such as Duchamp’s chess sketches, one of which appears to show two male figures kissing with a vaguely phallic playing piece trapped between their lips (3).

Marcel Duchamp’s painting, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even

Marcel Duchamp’s sketch, The Chess Players

As we analyze Duchamp’s intentions, it’s important that we also consider the cultural context and standards of the time. Many of Duchamp’s artmaking years were spent in France, which we have already discussed had a vibrant homosexual community with many intricate rituals and codewords. One such tradition was wealthy or respectable men taking fake names to protect their daytime identities; along with his well-known drag persona, Duchamp also had innumerable male aliases he went by throughout his life (4), including the infamous R. Mutt (Richard Mutt), by which he signed his Fountain, which, as we’ve established, was a work already full of queer implications. It’s highly unlikely that Duchamp was unaware of this pseudonym tendency among the homosexual community, for whom he was a vocal supporter. When accosted by a critic asking if he believed queer sexuality to be degenerate, he replied, “no, it is not degenerate”, and preceded to elaborate that he often found homosexuals to be more interested in and better supporters of the avant-garde movement and modern art than heterosexuals (2). He also did not shy away from using imagery that went countercurrent to heterosexual surrealist norms (4), or that was considered “homosexual” at the time— particularly phallic forms and masturbation. Curator Nayland Blake of In A Different Light, one of the largest queer exhibits ever shown in a major American museum, even went so far as to say that Duchamp “more than any other artist opened a space for queers to formulate points of resistance to the monolithic structure of ‘culture’.” (5).

Marcel Duchamp was also, famously, a prolific chess player, eventually giving up the life of a professional artist to pursue chess in his retirement. Biographers say he used chess as a measure and display of intimate friendship, playing extensively with both his second wife and close male friends. Furthermore, chess itself was seen as a particularly homoerotic game, with strict rules about touching opponents’ pieces or hands during the game, as many surrealists at the time equated this to homosexual contact. Chess, additionally, began as a game between prospective lovers before evolving into a more social activity (3). Duchamp’s obsession, therefore, may have been an expression of queer longing, or a manner of resistance against the largely rigid heterosocial activities available at the time. The homoerotic chess-related sketches mentioned earlier, as well, seem to imply that chess represented an outlet for Duchamp’s repressed feelings.

However, while considering the question of Duchamp’s conscious queer additions to his artwork in the context of culture, it’s also worth examining a different approach to the analysis: Duchamp liked shock value. He openly flaunted many artistic norms, not just those concerning heteronormative imagery. For instance, at his exhibition First Papers of Surrealism, he rigged ropes around the room, making it almost an obstacle course for guests to navigate, and also invited children to play and run as rowdy as they liked in the space. At another exhibit, he created an intentional fire hazard inside of a museum and turned off the lights, forcing visitors to view the artwork with a flashlight (6). Duchamp enjoyed a relatively safe and comfortable social status, so appropriating traditionally gay imagery, drag, and other shocking, countercurrent artforms was risk-free, allowing him to agitate the audience without exposing himself to considerable backlash or damage to his reputation (7). While this may mean Duchamp himself was not using art as a manner of queer self-expression, it does suggest that those homosexual symbols present in his works were included intentionally to cause a stir in his audience.

Despite this, it is likely that Duchamp was, in some manner, a queer individual. While we can’t make certain statements about Duchamp’s, or any historical figure’s, sexuality, we can speculate based on available evidence and make relatively confident deductions from his lifelong behavior. Most notably was his apparent aversion to women. While he married twice, his first marriage was to a woman he claimed was not particularly beautiful, and, despite the fact that they lived in separate apartments, only a few months after their wedding Duchamp divorced her on account of being “restless”. His second marriage was to a woman that Duchamp says he selected specifically because she was too old to have children, and while they were said to be good friends and chess partners, biographers suspect it was a largely passionless relationship. Even those women with whom he occasionally had affairs described him as cold and distant, completely unaffected by romantic persuasion and the appeal of long term relationships. (1). Meanwhile, he was known to have very close friendships with male contemporaries, especially André Breton, with whom he had a self-described “man-to-man” friendship. Duchamp even went so far as to say, “one could even see a homosexual element in it, if we were indeed homosexuals. We were not, but it is all the same. Our friendship could have turned into a homosexual one if it had not expressed itself in surrealism instead.” (4). As much as he insisted on his heterosexuality, Duchamp’s description of his relationship with Breton is hardly convincing that he did not have repressed homosexual longings. Perhaps his insistence on a platonic friendship with his colleague sprung from Breton’s intense insistence on heteronormativity in art and homophobic outlook on society (8), which would have forced Duchamp to hide any signs of queerness in order to preserve his intimate friendship with his artistic confidant.

Of course, no discussion of Duchamp is complete without mentioning Rrose Sélavy, his drag persona. Rrose was an incredibly complex and nuanced part of Duchamp’s life, more so than we’ll be able to completely discuss in this essay. Instead, we’ll focus on some key points; Rrose was inherently a playful and intentionally contradictory person. For instance, Duchamp, a Catholic, intentionally made Rrose a Jewish character to contrast his usual life (7). And not only was Rrose more feminine than Marcel, but Duchamp made sexually explicit artworks of himself, as Rrose, with other biological males, which both reinforces and completely ignores heteronormative expectations. This was the case with much of Rrose; although presented as a woman, Rrose retained many masculine characteristics and attitudes, perhaps inspired by similarly confidant female Dada artists at the time, such as the Baroness Elsa with whom Duchamp had a friendship (he turned down her romantic advances several times) (9). This defiance of gender norms was also inspired by Gertrude Stein, a sapphic writer in a relationship with notable avant-garde artist Alice Toklas, who helped design the persona of Rrose. Together, Stein and Duchamp were determined to reject gender and sexual norms, which makes Marcel’s decision to play his drag persona as a “masculine” woman especially interesting, a feminine outlook that maintained male authorship. This, perhaps, was related to the cultural norm of transgender identities being largely conflated with homosexuality in art (7). Rrose may have represented, for Duchamp, a method of expressing his queer desires in a way that was, while still shocking and counterculture, more accepted by the Dada community. And even if his drag persona was not representative of repressed homosexuality, it’s virtually impossible to deny that her existence, and especially the complexity of her relationship with Duchamp (he would write letters to himself from her), does not, in some way, indicate a queer aspect to Duchamp’s relationship with gender and sexuality. And, given how often his artworks were contributed to Rrose (including, in part, Fountain), that those queer feelings were not represented intentionally in his work.

Throughout this essay, we’ve examined several aspects that influenced Duchamp’s life, including his personal and interpersonal life, the culture surrounding his artmaking process, and symbols in some of his most famous works with the goal of determining whether or not modern, queer interpretations of his work are truly representative of what Duchamp intended. That is, were Duchamp’s works intentionally coded with queer symbolism. Based on the evidence we’ve discussed, I believe we can definitively say that Marcel Duchamp consciously chose to include elements of homosexual art, life, and experiences in his works, and that modern interpretations are just now appreciating the queer aspects to this artworks that went, at the time, unrecognized. His statements about The Large Glass, as well as the prominent relationship between Fountain and Parisian homosexual culture and homoerotic imagery in later works, shows that Duchamp had an artistic connection with the queer community that was too frequent in his works to ignore. Furthermore, by singularly focusing on homosocial activities such as chess, frequently causing commotions with his art, and taking male pseudonyms in a manner much like French gay men, Duchamp participated in society in a way unusual for traditionally heterosexual men, and was proud to do so. Finally, Duchamp himself exhibited many qualities that point to a likelihood of repressed or secreted queer feelings, including a disdain for women, a very homoerotic friendship with André Breton and a complex, often eroticized drag persona. Together, these aspects of the artist and his work indicate a queer, or at the least, very queer-positive, man who intentionally infused his work with aspects of the life he was unable, or unwilling, to publicly live.

Footnotes/Bibliography

(1) Karen M. Olvera “Marcel Duchamp's The Large Glass as ‘Negation of Women’.” UNT

Theses and Dissertations (1986)

(2)  Paul B. Franklin. “Object Choice: Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and the Art of Queer Art History.” Oxford Art Journal 23, no. 1 (2000): 23-50

(3) Christophe Wall-Romana. “‘Cinematic Blossoming’: Duchamp, Chess, and Infraqueer Mating.” Modernism/Modernity 27, no. 2 (2020): 323-338

(4) Robert Harvey. “Where's Duchamp?: Out Queering the Field.” Yale French Studies, no. 109 (2006): 82-97

(5)  Robert Atkins. “Goodbye Lesbian/Gay History, Hello Queer Sensibility: Meditating on Curatorial Practice.” Art Journal 55, no. 4 (1996): 86

(6)  Mark B. Pohlad. “Marcel Duchamp and the Viewer.” Smarthistory, February 24, 2021. https://smarthistory.org/duchamp-viewer/

(7) Lauren M. Rosenblum. “A Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Genderqueer Narrative and Photography in Gertrude Stein’s Interwar Texts.” Women: A Cultural Review 31, no. 3 (2020): 299-314

(8)  C. F. B. Miller. “Surrealism’s Homophobia.” October 173 (2020): 207-229

(9)  “Portrait Of Marcel Duchamp As A “Queer” Artist.” Louis Riel Institute. The Louis Riel Institute Adult Learning Centre. Accessed November 2nd, 2021. https://www.louisrielinstitute.com/portrait-of-marcel-duchamp-as-a-queer-artist/