“Where did this idea that anything could be a work of art come from? It’s generally believed to have come from Marcel Duchamp. In 1917, a urinal was sent to an art exhibition in New York, supposedly by Duchamp. But recent research has shown that the urinal was actually submitted by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Her gesture was an early feminist attack on a male society. She didn’t claim the urinal was a work of art. She was taking the piss. Duchamp stole her idea much later when he began to promote himself as the founding father of modern art.”
Wait, what? If ever a passage was crying out for a hyperlink…
(via felixsalmon)