The ‘ready-made’ came much later…
Some late feminist art writers insist on devaluating Marcel Duchamp’s primordial importance in the evolution of modern art, claiming that this French artist did not present the infamous Fountain to the famous “First Annual Exhibition” of the Society of Independent Artists at the Grand Central Palace, New York, April 10-May 6, 1917, but by Elsa Plotz, later Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.
The real author of the so-called Fountain is an essential issue in the history of the 20th Century Art that cannot be left aside. More on this later in this blog.
‘This was his revenge on art’: is Marcel Duchamp’s greatest work a fake?
Dalya Alberge
Sun 15 Oct 2023 12.00 CEST
In his 2003 book The Eclipse of Art he criticised Duchamp’s urinal for effectively saying that anything can be a work of art if an artist says it is.
Yesterday, he voiced frustration that the art establishment had refused to accept Von Freytag-Loringhoven’s authorship, as originally proposed by Irene Gammel in 2002, and ignored evidence in a 1917 letter in which Duchamp told his sister that “a woman friend” had submitted “a urinal as a sculpture” to an exhibition.
Over the years, Spalding has tried in vain to stage a public debate over whether a urinal could be art: “Nobody will discuss with me what they see in all this stuff. I’m now proved right.”
In his book, he argues that Von Freytag-Loringhoven’s work was more complex than Duchamp’s, and that she had submitted her urinal to an exhibition as the world expected America to declare war against her motherland, Germany. This, he claims, explains the signature R Mutt – mutter in German meaning mother, as well as armut, meaning poverty. “She was saying to America ‘don’t piss on my country’. Elsa’s urinal has many layers of meaning. These are all hidden under Duchamp’s puerile misappropriation.”
Weblink (retrieved on October 15, 2023)
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/15/conceptualist-art-fountain-is-fake-say-historians-marcel-duchamp?CMP=share_btn_link
Post scriptum. In a previous post on the c-blog, I gathered a series of texts on this subject that has been muting historians, critics, artists, institutions and the art market. This silence, however, is not at all favourable to Marcel Duchamp.
The Fountain’s mystery
« Une réplique, appropriée par Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), d’un original présenté à la Société des artistes indépendants de New York en avril 1917. » Could this be Fountain’s new museum label?
« Raconte ce détail à la famille : les indépendants sont ouverts ici avec gros succès. Une de mes amies sous un pseudonyme masculin, Richard Mutt, avait envoyé une pissotière en porcelaine comme sculpture. Ce n’était pas du tout indécent, aucune raison pour la refuser. Le comité a décidé de refuser d’exposer cette chose. J’ai donné ma démission et c’est un potin qui aura sa valeur dans New York. J’avais envie de faire une exposition spéciale des refusés aux Indépendants. Mais ce serait un pléonasme ! Et la pissotière aurait été « lonely ». à bientôt affect. Marcel » — Duchamp’s letter to her sister Suzanne Duchamp (April 11, 1917).
c blog 