“Wayne Andersen’s critical biography of Marcel Duchamp is a journey into darkness and a successful effort to expose and pop the bubbles that Duchamp and the post-modern art world created. Andersen promises to give his readers the book-ride of their collective lives: Before bringing you into the body of this book, let me toss a few tacks on the footpath so your going will be with caution. The approach I take to Marcel Duchamp is radical—to radical for the run-of-the-mill art historian, or the timid critic of modern art. Reading this book will be a test of one’s tolerance or forbearance, as the case may be … Andersen exposes and holds accountable the artists and curators who ushered in the post-Abstract Expressionist art world that flourishes under the Duchamp brand. It was not the critics, he tells us, but the curators and academics that made Duchamp a messianic anti-master, whose nihiism was eagerly adopted as artistic freedom.” —Steven Ozment, Professor, Harvard University. Author of A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People.