Baroness Elsa

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874?1927) is considered by many to be the firstAmerican dadaist as well as the mother of dada. An innovator in poetic form and an early creator ofjunk sculpture, "the Baroness" was best known for her sexually charged, often controversialperformances. Some thought her merely crazed, others thought her a genius. The editor MargaretAnderson called her "perhaps the only figure of our generation who deserves the epithetextraordinary." Yet despite her great notoriety and influence, until recently her story and workhave been little known outside the circle of modernist scholars.In Baroness Elsa, Irene Gammeltraces the extraordinary life and work of this daring woman, viewing her in the context of femaledada and the historical battles fought by women in the early twentieth century. Striding through thestreets of Berlin, Munich, New York, and Paris wearing such adornments as a tomato-soup can bra,teaspoon earrings, and black lipstick, the Baroness erased the boundaries between life and art,between the everyday and the outrageous, between the creative and the dangerous. Her art objectswere precursors to dada objects of the teens and twenties, her sound and visual poetry were far moredaring than those of the male modernists of her time, and her performances prefigured feminist bodyart and performance art by nearly half a century.

Irene Gammel is Professor of English at the University of Prince Edward Island.