As Conceptual art was emerging, Dine's use of iconic forms and repeated symbols attempted to understand how images create meaning. By singling out simple shapes and objects, and depicting them over and over, Dine suggests that they are important subjects for artistic study. Building on Marcel Duchamp's readymadesculptures, these ordinary objects take on a new, important, meaning solely because they were chosen by the artist and repeatedly studied. Isolating them and framing them in a gallery or museum space, Dine declares them worthy subjects to be celebrated in art, transforming them into something significant. Dine's work in this conceptual vein transforms Duchamp's skeptical gesture into part of a sincere investigation on how the artistic process elevates the ordinary.