Alreadymade

Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaist artwork Fountain has been described as the most important and influential piece of modernist art: a porcelain urinal, signed and repurposed as a museum exhibit. But what if Fountain was actually created by a woman? Rumours have long circulated that it is the lesser-known, flamboyant Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who should take credit for transforming this porcelain ‘piss pot’ into an artwork. And that is the intriguing claim that filmmaker Barbara Visser responds to in this thought-provoking and entertaining film. Delving into the absurd history of the iconic work using art, invention, imagination, journalistic investigation, and humour, Visser, a visual artist herself, has created an artwork about an artwork. Using the little archive footage of Freytag-Loringhoven that exists, and with the help of an actress and modern technology, a fascinating bohemian is brought out of the margins of art history.