An Artist’s Timely Riddles

Deploying scientific methods to understand a Dada artist's provocative creations

The artwork of Marcel Duchamp presents intriguing, yet maddeningly intricate, puzzles.

In this sequence of images, a computer simulation superimposes an image of a normal coat rack (depicted in color) on Duchamp’s “readymade” coat rack, as seen in a grainy 1917 photograph (above).