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 Sélavy. The chronological proximity of Tonsure to the ambivalent Rrose Sélavy 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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