THE LAMPS

“All who want me would like to eat me up. But I am too expansive and am open to all sides, desire this here and that there.” The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven “The Baroness is not a futurist. She is the future.” Marcel Duchamp “The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, née Plötz, was an unsung member of the New York Dada Movement. She was a poet, artist, vaudeville performer, runaway, rabble-rouser, cross-dresser, and all around public provocateur. She actively did not fit into her historical moment, and like most misfits, suffered for it. As with many women artists throughout history, her cultural legacy has been obscured and in some instances appropriated into the oeuvres of better-known male peers. Some researchers believe that the Baroness was the artist behind “Fountain,” the ready-made urinal attributed to Duchamp. The Lamps details her trip to the Naples Archeological Museum in the early 1900s where she breaks into “Il Gabinetto Segretto,“ a secret room filled with erotic objects from Pompeii.” Shelly Silver

details

  • Runtime

    4 min
  • Country

    United States
  • Year of Presentation

    2016
  • Year of Production

    2015
  • Director

    Shelly Silver
  • Cast

  • Production Company

    Silver, Shelly
  • Berlinale Section

    Forum
  • Berlinale Category

Biography Shelly Silver

Shelly Silver, born in 1957, is a New York based artist working with the still and moving image. Her work explores contested territories between public and private, narrative and documentary, and – increasingly in recent years – the watcher and the watched. She received a BA and BFA from Cornell University and subsequently attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Her work has been exhibited, screened, and broadcast worldwide. A retrospective of her work was presented at Cinéma du Réel, Pompidou Center (2015), as well as at DokLeipzig, Germany (2014). Silver is Associate Professor and Chair of the Visual Arts Program, Columbia University.

Filmography Shelly Silver

1984 Are We All Here? | 1987 Meet the People | 1989 getting in | 1989 Things I Forget to Tell Myself | 1990 We | 1991 The Houses That Are Left | 1994 April 2nd | 1994 Former East/Former West | 1996 37 Stories About Leaving Home | 1999 small lies, Big Truth | 2001 I. | 2003 suicide | 2004 What I'm Looking For | 2008 in complete world | 2009 5 lessons & 9 questions about Chinatown | 2013 frog spider hand horse house | 2013 . ## TOUCH