In the 1960s, Robert Morris created a series of works that dealt with systems of measurement and communication. In these pieces, he took inspiration from the work of the French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) whose unconventional ideas about art-making turned the definitions of art and creativity on their head. Morris was particularly interested in Duchamp’s “readymades” of the 1910s and ‘20s— objects such as a bottle rack, shovel, and urinal which he extracted from everyday life, titled, and placed in galleries, museums, and other fine arts contexts. Duchamp also experimented with processes that embraced randomness and chance as new ways to make art. In Untitled and similar pieces, Morris incorporated rulers. However, unlike a true readymade, these rulers were often carved by the hand of the artist from memory alone. As a result, they were imperfect measuring tools. With this series, Morris, like Duchamp, could be challenging basic assumptions, pointing out that inches and other measurement units that are today accepted as standard and objective reflect human decisions and a certain degree of arbitrariness. In many cases, such systems of measurement were originally based on something as organic and variable as the proportions of the human body.