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Duchamp loved playing games, particularly word

games and games of strategy.⁴ In a very real sense, making art was a game for Duchamp. The readymades represented a move, not unlike a bold chess move, intended to advance his position in the game of art.

Duchamp played his game of art primarily in the

context of arts institutions. Around the same time

Duchamp created “Fountain” he also cofounded an

organization whose stated purpose was to exhibit any

and all works of art without judgment or restrictions. It

was named the Society of Independent Artists. Any

artist who paid a modest fee could enter an artwork in

one of its shows. In 1917 the Society mounted the

largest exhibition of modern art ever seen in the United

States until then. However, when the hanging commit-

tee reviewed “Fountain”—submitted by an unknown

artist named R. Mutt—the piece was determined to be

not really a work of art but merely a “functional object.”

Duchamp, not coincidentally, was a member of the

hanging committee. Without giving himself away, he