L.H.O.O.Q. and wrote "Moustache par Picabia / barbiche par Marcel Duchamp / avril 1942". As was the case with a number of his readymades, Duchamp made multiple versions of "L.H.O.O.Q." of differing sizes and in different media throughout his career, one of which, an unmodified black and white reproduction of the "Mona Lisa" mounted on card, is called "L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved". The masculinized female introduces the theme of gender reversal, which was popular with Duchamp, who adopted his own female pseudonym, Rrose Sélavy, pronounced "Eros, c'est la vie" ("Eros, that's life"). Primary responses to "L.H.O.O.Q." interpreted its meaning as being an attack
Marcel Duchamp be considered "true". "The things themselves are not what science can reach..., but only the relations between things. Outside of these relations there is no knowable reality", Poincaré wrote in 1902. Reflecting the influence of Poincaré's writings, Duchamp tolerated any interpretation of his art by regarding it as the creation of the person who formulated it, not as truth. Duchamp's own art-science experiments began during his tenure at the library. To make one of his favorite pieces, "3 Standard Stoppages" ("3 stoppages étalon"), he dropped three 1-meter lengths of thread onto prepared canvases, one at a time, from a height