Was Duchamp's urinal a fraud? (ctd.)

September 11 2015

Picture: TAN

In The Independent, John Higgs has picked up on the theory, first put forward by Glyn Thompson and Julian Spalding, that Duchamp's famous urinal was actually the work of someone else, a German baroness called Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. I find the evidence rather compelling myself.

But does it matter? Wasn't Duchamp, or whoever had the initial idea of displaying the urinal as a work of art, merely making a point about 'the readymade'?

Of course it matters. We need to know whether the forgotten baroness was actually the iconoclastic genius art historians have lauded Duchamp for being. Personally, I like the idea that one of the most provocative interventions in the history of art - a subject which for the most part gives the term patriarchy a bad name - was actually the work of a woman.

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