In Duchamp’s Shadow: Dadaist in the City of Machines

Abstract

I set out to find a link between the Scarab Club signature and his coming to Detroit in 1961. We may never know why Duchamp—who never spoke fondly of history, especially its art movements and “isms” and rejected all facets of aesthetic commercialism—accepted an honorary degree from an urban university so far from the powerful centers of the art world. But for an artist fascinated by the machine and mechanical drawings, Detroit may have been a fitting place for such an honor.