Artigo Revisado por pares

Marcel Duchamp's Tonsure: Towards an alternate masculinity

2007; Oxford University Press; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/oxartj/kcm009

ISSN

1741-7287

Autores

Giovanna Zapperi,

Tópico(s)

Photography and Visual Culture

Resumo

This essay interrogates the photograph Tonsure, which shows Marcel Duchamp with a five-pointed star shaved on this head. I consider this image within the context of Duchamp's abandonment of painting and his transformation into the female alter-ego Rrose Selavy. The chronological proximity of Tonsure to the ambivalent Rrose Selavy suggests that Duchamp was searching for another way to represent himself as an artist. I thus propose reading the allusion to the de-sexualized masculinity of the priest with respect to his search for 'another' masculinity. By analysing the implications of Tonsure, this essay aims to broaden the field of investigation around Duchamp's masculinity by situating this unusual self-representation in relation to his artistic strategy after the end of painting.

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