DOCU DINSDAG SPECIAL: ALREADYMADE
LAB111 is not only a cinema but also a cultural hub housing many artists working with moving images, so we’re always proud when we can screen a new film by a filmmaker with a studio in our building. In 2004, a urinal was voted the most influential work ever in modern art. Famed artist and provocateur Marcel Duchamp claimed to have created “Fountain”—or rather, he bought the mass-produced product and signed it—but according to some, it is the lesser-known, flamboyant Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who should take credit for transforming this much-discussed porcelain “piss pot” into art. Filmmaker Barbara Visser has delved into the absurd history of the iconic work, of which it is uncertain whether the original still exists.
Was it marketing, mystification or misogyny that made the artwork Fountain so famous? What began as a lost object by an anonymous creator eventually became the most influential artwork of the 20th century. Speculation about a female author comes and goes. But who is she? What is real, and what is true, in this case? Doubts about the origins of this “readymade” work of art run parallel to the value of the countless copies in the repositories of modern art museums. Can the discovery of a single letter change all this into the attribution to a woman who was ahead of her time? In Alreadymade, originality, authorship and identity are questioned, just as Fountain (1917) did a century ago, only now using contemporary technology. Voices attributing the work to Elsa von Fretyag-Loringhoven, also known as the Baroness, are attracting increasing attention because historically there is quite a bit to set straight regarding female contributions in art. Or is it wishful thinking after all? The film Alreadymade itself takes the form of a “readymade,” virtuosically weaving the story with found material from various sources, making content and form one.
