The Magazine as Readymade: New York Dada and the Transgression of Genre and Gender Boundaries

Approaching New York Dada (1921) as a readymade, this article contends that its editors, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, manipulated the magazine medium to interrogate perceived divisions between print genres and gender roles. In so doing they offer a sometimes ambiguous but ultimately critical response to consumer culture and to the Dada movement itself. Examining the entire publication as a work of art rather than focusing solely on certain texts and images therein, this analysis expands current views of Dada art journals and the readymade, one of the defining and most profoundly influential strategies of the movement.