"The BARONESS IS THE FUTURE!" MARCEL DUCHAMP
The Baroness led a magnificent, though difficult, life. With a singular strength and vision, she moved between Berlin, Munich, and New York, infiltrating and exposing the still-patriarchal structure of avant garde and Dada circles through her role as painter, poet, sculptor, model, proto-performance artist, and often, lover. She published poems in The Little Review at the time that Ulysses was also serialized by the publication and sued for obscenities. Marcel Duchamp said of her: "the Baroness is the future!"; and yet, despite her extreme radicalism, she remains very unknown and uncredited, her acts and contributions dismissed as amusing stories.
After many years of obscurity, a book of her collected poems was published in 2011, and a biography (so far the only one) was compiled (Djuna Barnes had tried, in the past, to create one as well but gave up after several attempts. The Baroness does remain in many of her stories, for example, she is half the inspiration for the character Robin in Nightwood). Perhaps more scholarship will ensue, but in the spirit of her own fractured/anti-narrative life, we offer this collective biodrama, which also serves as an embodiment of today's identity politics.
In 1923, Freytag-Loringhoven went back to Berlin, expecting better opportunities to make money, but instead finding an economically devastated post-World War I Germany. Regardless of her difficulties inWeimar Germany, she remained there, penniless and on the verge of insanity. Several friends in the American expatriate community, in particular Djuana Barnes, Berenice Aboot, and Peggy Guggenheim, provided emotional and financial support.
Over the next few months Freytag-Loringhoven's mental stability steadily improved in Paris. However, she died on 14 December 1927 of suffocation after the gas was left on in her flat. She may have forgotten to turn the gas off, or someone else may have turned it on; the circumstances were never clear. She is buried in Paris, France at Pere Lachasie Cemetery.
After many years of obscurity, a book of her collected poems was published in 2011, and a biography (so far the only one) was compiled (Djuna Barnes had tried, in the past, to create one as well but gave up after several attempts. The Baroness does remain in many of her stories, for example, she is half the inspiration for the character Robin in Nightwood). Perhaps more scholarship will ensue, but in the spirit of her own fractured/anti-narrative life, we offer this collective biodrama, which also serves as an embodiment of today's identity politics.
In 1923, Freytag-Loringhoven went back to Berlin, expecting better opportunities to make money, but instead finding an economically devastated post-World War I Germany. Regardless of her difficulties inWeimar Germany, she remained there, penniless and on the verge of insanity. Several friends in the American expatriate community, in particular Djuana Barnes, Berenice Aboot, and Peggy Guggenheim, provided emotional and financial support.
Over the next few months Freytag-Loringhoven's mental stability steadily improved in Paris. However, she died on 14 December 1927 of suffocation after the gas was left on in her flat. She may have forgotten to turn the gas off, or someone else may have turned it on; the circumstances were never clear. She is buried in Paris, France at Pere Lachasie Cemetery.