Duchamp was the one who started the whole trend of turning banal ready-made objects into artworks by simply signing the object and giving it a new title...starting with the infamous urinal as artwork "Fountain" which he submitted under the name R. Mutt to the first exhibition of Society of Independent Artists in 1917. The Society was supposed to be supportive of 'alternative' artists rejected by the art establishments. But it rejected Duchamp's work of course. So much for alternative cultural institutions.

As you can see Duchamp is a bit of a prankster and non-conformist in the art community. He played with puns a lot and expanded his definition of art beyond the realms of traditional media to include language games and patterned thoughts. So when he 'gave up' art, when he stopped painting so that he can play chess, it wasn't a big change for him. He saw in chess an art of thoughts which was more interesting to him than the plasticity of paint. And unlike many other major figures in Western art of the 1920's and 30's, he never made a big deal out of his non-conformity...his stance was not anti-art as much as simply who he was.

His works are mostly rather lacking in color, but very rich in thoughts. The Wanted poster above is more of a prank and not representative of what Duchamp was capable of. Below is a link to a good-looking site devoted to Duchamp with pictures and all, so check it out if you like to know more about Duchamp: