Who is R. Mutt?

Who is R. Mutt? is a “readymade” alternate reality documentary game about the attribution controversy surrounding Fountain, the infamous urinal submitted to the Society of Independent Artists for display in their 1917 exhibition. This iconic artwork, which was later dubbed the most important artwork of the 20th Century, has long been associated with Marcel Duchamp and his oeuvre as the quintessential Dada artist. Recent evidence has emerged suggesting that Fountain, which was originally submitted under the moniker R. Mutt, was not in fact Duchamp’s creation. Follow the clues and join the movement to get the root of this controversy and determine the true identify of R. Mutt.

As 2017 is the centennial of Fountain, throughout the year, we will be staging a series of mini-games and interventions at festivals and exhibitions in locations that are implicated in this story, including New York, Paris and Berlin. For AMAZE, we will present three site-specific mini-games revolving around the theory that R. Mutt was actually the German-born artist Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven, known by her contemporaries as “The Baroness.”

1) “The Letter”- In April of 1917 by Duchamp to his sister explaining that a woman friend of his submitted a urinal to the exhibition. We will stage an intervention quest where we hide facsimiles of this letter in books featuring Fountain in museums, bookstores and libraries throughout Berlin; 2) “Hidden History” augmented reality quests will explore Berlin locations where “The Baroness” lived and worked. Many of these locations were destroyed during the World Wars, so the augmented reality will be used reintroduced these erased histories into the contemporary landscape; 3) A “Dada Art Party” where players use found objects to recreate the Baroness’ colorful costumes based on descriptions by artists and poets of her day.