Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” has been one of those moments that defined modern art history. A urinal signed and dated with the inscription “R Mutt 1917” has generated unyielding public debate. Some see Duchamp as the prophetic father of conceptualism and art’s ancestor as ideas. Others hold him as some maverick who killed craftsmanship. But behind this artistic saga’s scenes is a woman whose story has been overlooked.
The conceptual art bedrock has sustained an astonishing challenge. Two art historians are assailing this artistic movement’s core. Their research has upturned the long-accepted attribution of one of modern art’s central pieces, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” Their findings indicate that the urinal, considered to be Duchamp’s brainchild, was created by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a German Dada artist.
Glyn Thompson, an erstwhile art history lecturer at Leeds University, spearheaded this paradigm-shifting research. His careful study brings a different narrative about “Fountain,” which challenges Duchamp’s authorship of the piece. Thompson’s claim rests on compelling evidence: a dissimilar handwriting on the urinal unmistakably belonging to Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Thompson also dismantled Duchamp’s claim that he bought the urinal from a New York plumbing shop. Instead, he decided that the urinal was a model made in Philadelphia- Duchamp had yet to visit Philadelphia; at the time, this was Elsa’s home. She had relocated there after running town on shoplifting charges in New York.
He even found the identical model urinal Elsa submitted to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917. It was never exhibited and survived only in an Alfred Stieglitz photograph. He was able to find the only two surviving examples of this make and model and thus secure the authenticity of Elsa’s piece beyond dispute.
One central plank of Duchamp’s claim to be the author of the urinal came when he accounted, in 1966, for his mysterious signature “R Mutt”. He said it was an “elided” version of “Mott”, as in J L Mott Iron Works, the sanitary equipment manufacturer he claimed to have requisitioned the urinal. But Thompson’s findings dismantle this gloss, too. The company never made or marketed the model, attributed to Elsa. Thompson maintains that “R Mutt” was, in fact, a play on words in German for the word meaning impoverishment, “Hartmut,” submitted in very subtle writing by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven herself.
And with this revelation, now at the centre of this art world storm, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven rises from obscurity; buried beneath historical shades, her audacious creativity emerges as a beacon of artistic revolution. Thus, it becomes a paradigm-shifting moment, as we must revisit the origins of “Fountain” and the broader narratives that form the chronology of conceptual art. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven takes her rightful place in the pantheon of pioneering artists, an unacknowledged trailblazer in her own time.
Cecilia Alemani, curator of the Venice Biennale in 2022, attempted to right the record by celebrating legacies from eighty dead artists, most of whom women forgot quite unfairly. One of the stars was a girl who would later be called Baroness Dada, Else Hildegard Plötz- a brilliant star who brightened the avant-garde skies but whose memory had been submerged under many layers of art-historical oversight.
She was born in 1874 in Swinemünde, a city that belonged to the German Empire and is now in Poland. Elsa’s life was tormented. Raised in a choking climate by an oppressive father, at the age of 18 years, Elsa ran to Berlin, starting a journey that would take her right to the core of the Dada movement.
Elsa’s life was defiant and creative. She lived a Bohemian life in Berlin, joining avant-garde circles of the era. Her relationships were nothing out of the ordinary, having both heterosexual and Lesbian affairs. A turning point came when she moved to the United States with her second husband. In New York, she married Baron Leopold Freytag-Loringhoven, but facing financial difficulties, Elsa immediately became an integral figure in the Greenwich Village Dada scene.
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was not just a member of the Dada movement; she was its pulsating heart. Her performances were outrageous and bold; she confronted convention with every move. Naked, strolling down Manhattan streets embellished with tomato cans and a coffee spoon, Elsa was sure to offend the bourgeoisie and expand what artists could do.
History is often biased toward the privileged few. Elsa’s neighbour and contemporary, Duchamp, was credited with the revolutionary “Fountain.” In recent light, however, this has been further described. Historians’ analyses and studies unravelled another truth: it was Elsa von Freitag-Loringhoven, not Duchamp’s creations, that created the now-legendary urinal in 1917.
Elsa’s bold action was a response to a world at war, a symbolic protest to chaos and destruction. Her renunciation of society was condensed in the urinal, signed “R. Mutt,” a name of profound significance. With her art, Elsa declared war on men, blaming them for what was happening in the world.
Elsa’s reputation vanished with her death in 1927. It would be decades before works were rediscovered and pieces were put together from fragments of history. Recently, her work went on view at the 59th Venice Biennale, together with other pioneering female artists, including Leonora Carrington. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s right place is being corrected in the annals of art history.
The biography of René Steinke entitled “The Baroness of Greenwich Village” and the painstaking work of Irene Gammel entitled “Baroness Elsa” have been critical to reviving Elsa’s story. Lily Benson and Cassandra Guan produced a documentary, “The Filmballad of Mamadada,” which brings the woman and her art alive for the screen so that Elsa is not forgotten.
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven plays centre in an activity known as Dada rather than an afterthought footnote. Audacious, creative, and unyielding in spirit, she defied the very reason for art, putting into one’s mind that greatness has no gender and that true artistic revolution comes in every form. Unravelling her story calls for the art world to revise its narratives and introduce the multivariate, often-unheard genius of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Dada’s true provocateur.
Photo: ‘Fountain’ by Marcel Duchamp? © Artlyst 2023