Jacques Rigaut (French, 1898 - 1929) was a Dada poet and performer, who spent much of his life staging a Dadaist rejection of social norms. After serving in a motor pool in World War I, Rigaut returned to Paris disillusioned with the path he was on, prescribed by his parents, to become a lawyer. He made his first attempt at suicide in 1920, failing due to the gun not firing. His subsequent Dadaist writing meditates on the act of suicide, showing his continued fascination. In 1929, he successfully committed suicide using a ruler to place the gun directly over his heart.