Alreadymade
Barbara Visser / Netherlands / 2023 / International Premiere / 86 min
Is that supposed to be art? Marcel Duchamp's urinal became the most influential artwork of the 20th century, but the story of the iconic piece unravels itself in an intelligent and witty film that dares to ask: Did a woman actually come up with the idea?
When and how does something become a work of art? A porcelain urinal, for example? Theorists have fiercely debated this in the century that has passed since Marcel Duchamp took an ordinary, mass-produced urinal, signed it under an alias and sent it to an exhibition in Paris. For the first time, the idea itself was the artwork. But who actually came up with the idea in the first place? Rumours have long circulated in the art world that the lesser-known Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven should be credited with the simple but brilliant concept behind the scandalous ‘Fountain’. Visual artist Barbara Visser delves into the absurd history of the iconic work to find the truth, and the result is an art historical detective film that makes your mind spin like a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool. And of course, her film is itself a readymade, consisting of pre-existing material that Visser has edited together into a lively, unpredictable and well-paced collage film.