Being Duchamp Becoming Elsa
A many-faceted project of speculative fiction, involving moving image performance, 3D printed objects and a publication. About an artwork that changed how we view art and what we think about the world, and how, in the absence of any evidence to contradict the myth, Duchamp, seminal 20th century artist, claims it as his own. What would it mean if the most important artwork of 20th century had been made by a woman? Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Artist, poet and magical thinker. Art history and the world would be very different if Elsa vF was acknowledged as the originator of the now famous urinal.
The cross-dressing, gender-bending narrative, encounters the man who lived down the hall, Duchamp and Elsa’s run-ins with the old boys’ club. Secrets, lies, figurative and real murder. Examining the clues, what was Elsa trying to tell us?
