Coat Stand

Author: Marijke Peyser

At the end of the First World War Dadaism spread from Zurich to Barcelona, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne and Paris and it also reached New York. In early 1921 Tristan Tzara, the leader of the European Dada movement, wrote to Man Ray to sound him out about joining Dada.^[1] Soon afterwards Tzara gave Man Ray ‘permission’ to launch Dada in the United States, and had no objection to the use of the word ‘Dada’ in the title of a publication: ‘Dada belongs to everybody … I know excellent people who have the name Dada. Mr Jean Dada; Mr Gaston Dada; Francis Picabia’s dog is called Zizi de Dada … Dada belongs to everybody … Like the idea of God or of the toothbrush.’^[2]

In collaboration with his friend, the artist Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray made the first and only issue of the magazine New York Dada, which appeared in April 1921. The publication consisted of a large sheet of paper folded into four. On the front was Duchamp’s altered readymade, the Belle Haleine: eau de voilette perfume bottle, with a portrait of Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy by Man Ray on the label.^[3] On request the photographer Alfred Stieglitz also made a contribution. Various photographs of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the star of Man Ray and Duchamp’s film Elsa, Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, Shaves Her Pubic Hair (1921) were printed. Tzara’s permission took up most of page three. Here Coat Stand, a photographed assemblage of a tailor’s dummy is depicted horizontally. The assemblage, made with materials Man Ray happened to have in his house, was created for the sole purpose of the photograph and was not saved.^[4] Below the image are the words ‘Dadaphoto’ and ‘Trademark Reg’ and to its left ‘Keep Smiling’.

Man Ray and Duchamp both liked visual puns, and the strikingly horizontal position of the photograph can be explained in this context: ‘une horizontale’ is a prostitute, an old-fashioned French expression that is still in use. At that time it was assumed that it was Baroness Von Freytag-Loringhoven.^[5] Taking into account Man Ray’s personal circumstances in April 1921 another explanation is possible. Man Ray’s wife Adon Lacroix was being unfaithful; their marriage was on the rocks and could no longer be saved. If this interpretation is valid the photograph could be seen as settling accounts. Man Ray made Coat Stand shortly before he went to Paris. It was the conclusion of a stage of life when he turned his back on his failed marriage and New York Dada and looked forward to a new beginning – keep smiling!