Drawdy 1

Morgan Drawdy Modern Art and the Machine Dr. Katherine Anania November 30, 2018 Welcome to Dada “Dada art is anti-Art,” (The Art Story), was the chant and key idea behind the Dada Art Movement that started in 1915 and continued through to 1924. The New York and European Dada movements begin after the start of the first world war which was from 1914-1918. Dada started as a way to mock the art scene, high society, and capitalism, and when people reflect on this movement, their minds instantly travel to the outlandish ideas that the Dadaists presented and how they transformed the art scene. The movement itself began at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland which was created by Hugo Ball, a German author and the founder of the Dada movement. Many works of art made by New York Dada artists were produced in response to World War I, despite this war not taking place on American soil. By examining the works and life of the Baroness Elsa Von Freytag Loringhoven, with respect to gender, I will explore how the effects of the war—fought an ocean away, yet still present in the American popular imagination—influenced her works. At the time of the war, there was an expected spike in patriotism and nationalism, but aside from that there were a lot of impending societal changes in the U.S. Before the war, gender roles were normative and difficult to escape. The men would go to work, and the women were expected to play the role as the mother, but these ideas of gender started to change as the war broke out, (Changing Lives). The men were either sent to war or told to stay in America to keep the basic business structures running. The women were recruited in helping war efforts, such as becoming nurses. After the war, these societal expectations of gender roles started to morph back into the way there were before the war, but not completely. In the paper Equivocal Masculinity, Amelia Jones states, “WWI paradoxically set in motion experiences that served to unmask the absence at the heart of these narratives or progress, undermining their truth value and leading to a culture of cynicism and irony.” (Equivocal Masculinity, 166). People did not know how to react to a war of this magnitude, so it is expected that the overall feelings of the people would be this developed cynicism and irony that she references in her paper. Considering the tragedy that the entire nation faced, there was this overarching sense of mourning that was mostly done in private. The nation was forced to rebuild and after the war that was the focus. What would this new nation look like? Towards the end of the war the tides shifted and on January 1st, 1918 the New York Times posted an article titled, “The New United States.” This article alludes to an increased sense of nationalism. They say, “War that wrings hearts and desolates homes brings into action lofty qualities of the human soul, fortitude, effort, sacrifice, honor, love of country, and it reveals to nations their own undreamed-of-strength and greatness; in the intense concentration of endeavor, their power is first made known,” (New York Times, 1918). The New York times also reported that there was a tremendous spike in the entertainment business, specifically in cinema. On January 2nd, 1916 an article stated that, “One out of every ten men, women, and children in this country visits a photoplay theatre weekly,” (New York Times, 20). In this paper I suggest that this increased attention to gender norms and escapism was a way to control the traumas happening on the national stage. It was easy to immerse oneself in popular fantasies about the war than be openly against it. Drawdy 2

One artist, who’s androgynous lifestyle labeled her as a radical exponent to the Dada Movement, was the Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven. She would parade around the streets of New York collecting objects from the streets and the gutters and ornament her body with them creating a New York City costume that she adamantly insisted was a form of art. She would use these costumes to put on her impromptu performances in the streets for the non-consenting passersby. Irene Gammel credits her such that, “single handedly she took art out of its designated museum spaces and performance out of the theater and the dancing halls,” (Baroness Elsa, 185). From a photograph of the Baroness in her studio, Irene Gammel narrates that, “Her studio surroundings look makeshift, as if to announce that creative élan arises in the midst of chaos: a sofa chair to the left sports a male jacket; a dark blanket partially covers the wall; there is a decorative plate on the wall; a cage with a bird hangs suspended from the ceiling; small carpets decorate the floor.” (Baroness Elsa, 171). The Baroness’s performances were spontaneous and often times messy, seeing as most of her content consisted of trash off the streets of the city; however, they rivaled these clear-cut edited performances that were seen in theatres. Her performances were viewed by happenstance and theatre performances were viewed by intention. Her life was filled with tragedy and irony, like that of a Shakespearean play. She was born in Germany where her mother died of ovarian cancer—a death for which the Baroness blamed her father because she believed that the cancer started from the untreated case of syphilis that her mother had contracted from her father. She had various flings with men across Europe and at one point on her journey she helped her first husband fake his own death and start a new life on Kentucky farmland. Despite the Baroness’ radical politically charged take on World War One, her experience with it was quite minimal. Her 2nd husband, Baron Leopold von Freytag- Loringhoven, heard news of the war in 1914 and decided to leave for Europe in hopes of redeeming his tainted honor. He left immediately carrying with him all of Elsa’s savings to join the war effort. Almost immediately he was taken as a prisoner of war for the duration of the war, about 4 years. After he was released he committed suicide on April 25th, 1919. Elsa recounted this action as, “the bravest of his life.” She herself decided to remain physically detached from the war, but this did not stop her from making artistic statements about it. Amelia Jones details one of her performances as, “A rangy German Baroness riding along with a French poilu’s trench helmet- perhaps the ultimate mixed metaphor of the Great War,” (Equivocal Masculinty, 162). This created this mixed metaphor due to the fact the France was Germany’s main enemy since the French and Prussian wars. So when she would prance around clearly siding with all things french, she was dismantling the side that were created by representing a joint union of French and German love. The Baroness would often mirror the events of the war on her body, such as the bombing of German trains carrying soldiers, and walk around New York City. She would wear such things as an aviator hat and a French Poilu’s blue trench helmet. While most European artists were actively fleeing from the war, she was acting out her own version of it. A lot of her anti-war artwork was portrayed in the sense of performance that the streets of New York had come to notice, but her more sculptural works, specifically one titled, “God” epitomized her Dada style, and irreverent sensible thinking. Her work can be compared to those of Marcel Duchamp and his readymade creations. God consists of a cast iron drain trap set on its end that is mounted on a miter box. She frequently is known to elevate common objects to art, inviting the viewer to question the value of fine art and challenge the division between art and everyday life. The baroness often depicted sexual innuendos in her works and comments on a things or people that she thinks have wronged her and this piece is no exception. The piece, “God” loosely resembles the male typical genitalia pointing towards Drawdy 3 heaven. This piece is thought to heavily represent her antireligious father who would equate the ritual of prayer with a trip to the restroom for urination. This is a critique on the male dominated society that she works and lives in and a comment of what she sees around her and what she grew up with. Ironically, a lot of her pieces were miscredited to male colleagues of hers. This piece in particular was accredited to Morton Schamberg, a photographer that she often worked with. People were more willing to accept her avant-garde pieces as made by men rather than by the true artist. Another example would be the idea of the “ready-made.” Marcel Duchamp is known to be the founder of the readymade, but it was in fact Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who invented it. She started to use ready-mades in her art in 1913, two years before Duchamp stepped foot in New York City. She collected a rusted iron ring on the way to her wedding ceremony with the Baron. It was named Enduring Ornament in honor of their soon to be marriage in 1913. Ironically the art piece has lasted decades longer than her short marriage to the baron, but it is said to be one of her first readymade pieces. The readymade was created as an alternative to contemporary or popular art. The mentality that the war created was harsh and unforgiving which breed into this new anti-art, anti-bourgeoise art form properly named the readymade. The Baroness took this question of what is and what is not art and answered it by saying that anything can be art, even a rusted ring on the side of the road. The Baroness lived her life through the lens of androgyny. She dressed androgynous and her artwork was equally androgynous. Irene Gammel writes in connection with a picture that, “The Baroness as war bride poses in an aviator hat, it’s masculinity (and reference to war) undercut with a feminine feather (also alluding to her identity as a writer); her body is enveloped in an eccentric, diagonally striped acrobat’s costume so tight it seems painted on her lean torso and legs. The geometrical effects of pose and costume are at odds with the mature, smiling face of the woman posing, just as the historical allusion to the horrendous international war is at odds with the privacy of her studio, in which clothing lies scattered around,” (Baroness Elsa, 9). Every aspect of her costumes represents a different part of her interests in the war and in gender. She constantly includes these concepts in everything that she does. Her readymade will switch from representing the male concept, the women concept, both at the same time. She wanted to break these gender roles down until they were almost nonexistent in their significance. Francis Picabia on the other hand wanted to strictly enforce gender roles in his works. He never blurred the lines between male and female. Picabia has a very unique style of portrait that takes the form of mechanical art pieces that have very deep meanings or plays on words. His piece, “Portrait of an American Women in the Nude,” has two very distinct, contrasting interpretations, but they both seem to be centered around the same girl, Agnes Ernst Meyer. She was a friend of Picabia’s, one that he admired. The story goes that this painting is a portrait of her how Picabia saw her. The first interpretation is this. The lines in the painting are clean and sleek which gives this illusion to elegance and class. The spark plug references her love of cars and the act of driving which is a pastime that she fondly shared with Picabia. The portrait also captures her essence of being, that of being a “dynamic, attractive woman whose marriage to a prominent banker made her financially independent,” (The Rise of Surrealism ,68). Picabia portrays that she is, “the spark that ignited the new energies within the Stieglitz group,” (The Rise of Surrealism ,68) in 1915. The second interpretation goes a little bit along more with Picabia’s typical style. There is a visual poem that Drawdy 4 was published 3 months prior to this painting coming out that is said to unveil more context. It was called “Mental Reactions” by de Zayas and text by Meyer. It recorded Agnes’s reactions to an attractive man at a gathering and can be summarized in one word, flirt. This is said to illuminate one of her traits that most annoyed Picabia. He decided to portray her as a spark plug as if to suggest that she is an erotic tease. She is depicted as a spark plug to spark men’s passions and the name, “An American Girl in a State of Nudity” represents how much he desired to see her in such a compromising position. This idea of overt masculinity came about as he struggled to find his place in the world where women were threatening to become their equal. His work really rivals that of the Baroness due to this misogynistic view that he creates of women that he encounters versus the empowering view that the Baroness promoted and lived by. These two responses to the war were very contrasting, but very alive at the time. The Baroness was often overshadowed in the media as well. The media would focus on male artists such as Francis Picabia and completely skip over her. Despite her being well known in New York, she is never once mentioned in the New York Times other than in connection with her husband, the Baron’s, death. This is an unfortunate theme throughout her and most female artists careers. She herself stated, “magazines are opposed to my very name,” (Baroness Elsa 5). Her work has seemed to be kept a secret among scholars until the book Baroness Elsa was published in 2002. Her work was shelved under the names of other artists, and a majority of it only became available seven decades after her death in Irene Gammel states “The Baroness herself was shelved in cultural history under the rubric of eccentricity and madness,” (Baroness Elsa 5). A lot of her work first became available seven decades after her death on December 14th, 1927. The Baroness lived a troubled life, starting with her aggressive upbringing and ending at her tragic death. She never made a profit during her life off of her work, but instead lived in poverty and survived off of her job as a nude model. She was constantly overshadowed and used by the men in her life, her father, the Baron, and the countless men who took credit for her work. She represented the “New American way of Life,” as she saw it. She lived haphazardly and care free, bringing her art to the unwelcoming streets of New York City and parading the catastrophic war that was raging on overseas through costumes and poems. She showed what it meant to be extreme Dada. She serves as a token to look back on to the extreme effects of the war on the American people.

Drawdy 5

Works Cited

Art, Philadelphia Museum of. “God.” Philadelphia Museum of Art, www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/51106.html.

“Baroness Elsa Biographical Sketch.” The Kelmscott Press William Morris, www.lib.umd.edu/dcr/collections/EvFL-class/bios.html.

“Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven Overview and Analysis.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist-von-freytag-loringhoven-elsa.htm.

Bohn, Willard. The Rise of Surrealism: Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the Marvelous. State University of New York Press, 2002.

“Dada Movement Overview and Key Ideas.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm.

“Francis Picabia’s Life and Legacy.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist-picabia-francis-life-and- legacy.htm.

Gammel, Irene. Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada, and Everyday Modernity: a Cultural Biography. MIT, 2003.

Jones, Amelia. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/1467-8365.00312.Accessed 25 Sept. 2018.

“New York Times New York City Poll, January 1916.” January 2003. ICPSR Data Holdings, 1 Jan. 1916, doi:10.3886/icpsr03741.v4

“New York Times New York City Poll, January 1918.” January 2003. ICPSR Data Holdings, 1 Jan. 1918, doi:10.3886/icpsr03741.v4

The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/261000.

Thill, Vanessa. “The Dada Baroness Who Invented the Readymade-before Duchamp.” 11 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy, Artsy, 18 Sept. 2018, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-elsa-von-freytag- loringhoven-dada-baroness-invented-readymade.