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Dada Cover of the first edition of the publication Dada by Tristan Tzara; Zürich, 1917. Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922.[1] The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art mani- festoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing stand- ards in art through anti-art cultural works. Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/liter- ary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often dis- cussed in a variety of media. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art, Fluxus and punk rock. Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-polit- ical uses in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism. —Marc Lowenthal, translator’s introduction to Francis Picabia’s I Am a Beautiful Mon- ster: Poetry, Prose, And Provocation Overview It’s too idiotic to be schizophrenic. — Carl Jung on the Dada productions.[2] Dada was an informal international move- ment, with participants in Europe and North America. The beginnings of Dada correspond to the outbreak of World War I. For many participants, the movement was a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and coloni- alist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity — in art and more broadly in society — that cor- responded to the war. [3] Hannah Höch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919, collage of pasted papers, 90x144 cm, Staatliche Mu- seum, Berlin. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 1 Many Dadaists believed that the ’reason’ and ’logic’ of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their re- jection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality. For example, George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest "against this world of mutual destruction".[4] According to its proponents, Dada was not art, it was "anti-art." For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the oppos- ite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was in- tended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics the Da- daists hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics. As dadaist Hugo Ball expressed it, "For us, art is not an end in itself ... but it is an oppor- tunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in."[5] A reviewer from the American Art News stated at the time that "The Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most de- structive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man." Art historians have de- scribed Dada as being, in large part, "in reac- tion to what many of these artists saw as nothing more than an insane spectacle of col- lective homicide."[6] Years later, Dada artists described the movement as "a phenomenon bursting forth in the midst of the postwar economic and moral crisis, a savior, a monster, which would lay waste to everything in its path. [It was] a systematic work of destruction and demoralization...In the end it became nothing but an act of sacrilege."[6] History Origin of the word Dada The origin of the name "Dada" is unclear. One explanation maintains that it origin- ates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco’s frequent use of the words da, da, which is transliterates as English equivalent of yeah, yeah, as in a sarcastic or facetious yeah, right. (Da in Romanian strictly translates as yes.) Some believe that it is simply a nonsensic- al word. Another theory is a group of artists as- sembled in Zürich in 1916, wanting a name for their new movement, chose it at random by stabbing a French-German dictionary with a paper knife, and picking the name that the point landed upon. Dada in French is a child’s word for hobby-horse. In French the colloquialism, c’est mon dada, means it’s my hobby.[7] According to the Dada ideal, the move- ment would not be called "Dadaism", much less designated an art-movement.[8] Zürich In 1916, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Sophie Täuber, along with oth- ers, discussed art and put on performances in the Cabaret Voltaire expressing their disgust with the war and the interests that inspired it. By some accounts Dada coalesced on Octo- ber 6 at the cabaret. By other accounts Dada did not spring full-grown from a Zürich liter- ary salon but grew out of an already vibrant artistic tradition in Eastern Europe, particu- larly Romania, that transposed to Switzer- land when a group of Romanian modernist artists Tzara, Marcel & Iuliu Iancu, Arthur Segal, etc, settled in Zürich. Because Bucharest and other cities had already been the scene of Dada-like poetry, prose and spectacle in the years before WW1., this sug- gests Dada came from the East. [9] The artists were in "neutral" Zürich, Switzerland, having left Germany and Ro- mania during the happenings of WWI. It was here that they decided to use abstraction to fight against the social, political, and cultural ideas of that time that they believed had caused the war. Abstraction was viewed as the result of a lack of planning and logical thought processes. [10] "[A]bstract art signified absolute honesty for us." - Richard Huelsenbeck At the first public soiree at the cabaret on July 14, 1916, Ball recited the first manifesto (see text). Tzara, in 1918, wrote a Dada mani- festo considered one of the most important of the Dada writings. Other manifestos followed. Marcel Janco recalled, We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. We would begin again after the "tabula rasa". At the Cabaret Voltaire we began From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 2 by shocking common sense, public opinion, education, institutions, museums, good taste, in short, the whole prevailing order. A single issue of Cabaret Voltaire was the first publication to come out of the movement. After the cabaret closed down, activities moved to a new gallery, and Ball left Europe. Tzara began a relentless campaign to spread Dada ideas. He bombarded French and Itali- an artists and writers with letters, and soon emerged as the Dada leader and master strategist. The Cabaret Voltaire has by now re-opened, and is still in the same place at the Spiegelgasse 1 in the Niederdorf. Zürich Dada, with Tzara at the helm, pub- lished the art and literature review Dada be- ginning in July 1917, with five editions from Zürich and the final two from Paris. When World War I ended in 1918, most of the Zürich Dadaists returned to their home countries, and some began Dada activities in other cities. Berlin Cover of Anna Blume, Dichtungen, 1919 The groups in Germany were not as strongly anti-art as other groups. Their activity and art was more political and social, with corros- ive manifestos and propaganda, satire, public demonstrations and overt political activities. It has been suggested that this is at least par- tially due to Berlin’s proximity to the front, and that for an opposite effect, New York’s geographic distance from the war spawned its more theoretically-driven, less political nature. In February 1918, Huelsenbeck gave his first Dada speech in Berlin, and produced a Dada manifesto later in the year. Hannah Höch and George Grosz used Dada to express post-World War I communist sympathies. Grosz, together with John Heartfield, de- veloped the technique of photomontage dur- ing this period. The artists published a series of short-lived political journals, and held the First International Dada Fair, ’the greatest project yet conceived by the Berlin Dadaists’, in the summer of 1920.[11] As well as the main members of Berlin Dada, Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Höch, Johannes Baader, Huelsen- beck and Heartfield, the exhibition also in- cluded work by Otto Dix, Francis Picabia, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Rudolf Schlichter, Jo- hannes Baargeld and others.[11] In all, over 200 works were exhibited, surrounded by in- cendiary slogans, some of which also ended up written on the walls of the Nazi’s Entar- tete Kunst exhibition in 1937. Despite high ticket prices, the exhibition made a loss, with only one recorded sale.[12] The Berlin group published periodicals such as Club Dada, Der Dada, Everyman His Own Football , and Dada Almanach. Cologne In Cologne, Ernst, Baargeld, and Arp launched a controversial Dada exhibition in 1920 which focused on nonsense and anti- bourgeois sentiments. Cologne’s Early Spring Exhibition was set up in a pub, and required that participants walk past urinals while be- ing read lewd poetry by a woman in a com- munion dress. The police closed the exhibi- tion on grounds of obscenity, but it was re- opened when the charges were dropped.[13] New York Like Zürich, New York City was a refuge for writers and artists from World War I. Soon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 3 Rrose Sélavy, the alter ego of famed Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp; photo- graph by Alfred Stieglitz. after arriving from France in 1915, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia met American artist Man Ray. By 1916 the three of them became the center of radical anti-art activit- ies in the United States. American Beatrice Wood, who had been studying in France, soon joined them. Much of their activity centered in Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery, 291, and the home of Walter and Louise Arensberg. The New Yorkers, though not particularly organized, called their activities Dada, but they did not issue manifestos. They issued challenges to art and culture through public- ations such as The Blind Man, Rongwrong, and New York Dada in which they criticized the traditionalist basis for museum art. New York Dada lacked the disillusionment of European Dada and was instead driven by a sense of irony and humor. In his book Adven- tures in the arts: informal chapters on paint- ers, vaudeville and poets Marsden Hartley in- cluded an essay on "The Importance of Being ’Dada’". During this time Duchamp began exhibit- ing "readymades" (found objects) such as a bottle rack, and got involved with the Society of Independent Artists. In 1917 he submitted the now famous Fountain, a urinal signed R. Mutt, to the Society of Independent Artists show only to have the piece rejected. First an object of scorn within the arts community, the Fountain has since become almost canon- ized by some. The committee presiding over Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize in 2004, for example, called it "the most influential work of modern art."[14] In an attempt to "pay homage to the spirit of Dada" a performance artist named Pierre Pinoncelli made a crack in The Fountain with a hammer in January 2006; he also urinated on it in 1993. Picabia’s travels tied New York, Zürich and Paris groups together during the Dadaist period. For seven years he also published the Dada periodical 391 in Barcelona, New York City, Zürich, and Paris from 1917 through 1924. By 1921, most of the original players moved to Paris where Dada experienced its last major incarnation (see Neo-Dada for later activity). Paris The French avant-garde kept abreast of Dada activities in Zürich with regular From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 4 communications from Tristan Tzara (whose pseudonym means "sad in country," a name chosen to protest the treatment of Jews in his native Romania), who exchanged letters, poems, and magazines with Guillaume Apol- linaire, André Breton, Max Jacob, and other French writers, critics and artists. Paris had arguably been the classical mu- sic capital of the world since the advent of musical Impressionism in the late 19th cen- tury. One of its practitioners, Erik Satie, col- laborated with Picasso and Cocteau in a mad, scandalous ballet called Parade. First per- formed by the Ballet Russes in 1917, it suc- ceeded in creating a scandal but in a differ- ent way than Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Prin- temps had done almost 5 years earlier. This was a ballet that was clearly parodying itself, something traditional ballet patrons would obviously have serious issues with. Dada in Paris surged in 1920 when many of the originators converged there. Inspired by Tzara, Paris Dada soon issued manifestos, organized demonstrations, staged perform- ances and produced a number of journals (the final two editions of Dada, Le Cannibale, and Littérature featured Dada in several edi- tions.)[15] The first introduction of Dada artwork to the Parisian public was at the Salon des Indépendants in 1921. Jean Crotti exhibited works associated with Dada including a work entitled, Explicatif bearing the word Tabu. In the same year Tzara staged his Dadaist play The Gas Heart to howls of derision from the audience. When it was re-staged in 1923 in a more professional production, the play pro- voked a theatre riot (initiated by André Bre- ton) that heralded the split within the move- ment that was to produce Surrealism. Tzara’s last attempt at a Dadaist drama was his "ironic tragedy" Handkerchief of Clouds in 1924. Netherlands In the Netherlands the Dada movement centered mainly around Theo van Doesburg, most well known for establishing the De Stijl movement and magazine of the same name. Van Doesburg mainly focused on poetry, and included poems from many well-known Dada writers in De Stijl such as Hugo Ball, Hans Arp and Kurt Schwitters. Van Doesburg be- came a friend of Schwitters, and together they organized the so-called Dutch Dada campaign in 1923, where Van Doesburg pro- moted a leaflet about Dada (entitled What is Dada?), Schwitters read his poems, Vilmos Huszàr demonstrated a mechanical dancing doll and Nelly Van Doesburg (Theo’s wife), played avant-garde compositions on piano. Van Doesburg wrote Dada poetry himself in De Stijl, although under a pseudonym, I.K. Bonset, which was only revealed after his death in 1931. ’Together’ with I.K. Bonset, he also published a short-lived Dutch Dada magazine called Mécano. Georgia Although Dada itself was unknown in Georgia until at least 1920, from 1917-1921 a group of poets called themselves "41st Degree" (re- ferring both to the latitude of Tbilisi, Georgia and to the temperature of a high fever) or- ganized along Dadaist lines. The most import- ant figure in this group was Iliazd, whose radical typographical designs visually echo the publications of the Dadaists. After his flight to Paris in 1921, he collaborated with Dadaists on publications and events. Tokyo In Japan there were some Dada movement. One group is MAVO,founded by Tomoyoshi Murayama and Yanase Masamu. Others are Jun Tsuji,Eisuke Yoshiyuki,Shinkichi Taka- hashi,andKatsue Kitasono. Poetry; music and sound Dada was not confined to the visual and liter- ary arts; its influence reached into sound and music. Kurt Schwitters developed what he called sound poems and composers such as Erwin Schulhoff, Hans Heusser and Albert Savinio wrote Dada music, while members of Les Six collaborated with members of the Dada movement and had their works per- formed at Dada gatherings. The above men- tioned Erik Satie dabbled with Dadaist ideas throughout his career although he is primar- ily associated with musical Impressionism. In the very first Dada publication, Hugo Ball describes a "balalaika orchestra playing delightful folk-songs." African music and jazz was common at Dada gatherings, signaling a return to nature and naive primitivism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 5 Legacy See also: Postmodernism#Notable philosoph- ical and literary contributors The Janco Dada Museum, named after Mar- cel Janco, in Ein Hod, Israel While broad, the movement was unstable. By 1924 in Paris, Dada was melding into surreal- ism, and artists had gone on to other ideas and movements, including surrealism, social realism and other forms of modernism. Some theorists argue that Dada was actually the beginning of postmodern art.[16] By the dawn of World War II, many of the European Dadaists had fled or emigrated to the United States. Some died in death camps under Hitler, who persecuted the kind of "De- generate art" that Dada represented. The movement became less active as post-World War II optimism led to new movements in art and literature. Dada is a named influence and reference of various anti-art and political and cultural movements including the Situationists and culture jamming groups like the Cacophony Society. At the same time that the Zürich Dadaists made noise and spectacle at the Cabaret Voltaire, Vladimir Lenin wrote his revolution- ary plans for Russia in a nearby apartment. Tom Stoppard used this coincidence as a premise for his play Travesties (1974), which includes Tzara, Lenin, and James Joyce as characters. French writer Dominique Noguez imagined Lenin as a member of the Dada group in his tongue-in-cheek Lénine Dada (1989). The Cabaret Voltaire fell into disrepair un- til it was occupied from January to March, 2002, by a group proclaiming themselves neo-Dadaists, led by Mark Divo.[17] The group included Jan Thieler, Ingo Giezendan- ner, Aiana Calugar, Lennie Lee and Dan Jones. After their eviction the space became a museum dedicated to the history of Dada. The work of Lennie Lee and Dan Jones re- mained on the walls of the museum. Several notable retrospectives have ex- amined the influence of Dada upon art and society. In 1967, a large Dada retrospective was held in Paris, France. In 2006, the Mu- seum of Modern Art in New York City held a Dada exhibition in conjunction with the Na- tional Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Art techniques developed Collage The dadaists imitated the techniques de- veloped during the cubist movement through the pasting of cut pieces of paper items, but extended their art to encompass items such as transportation tickets, maps, plastic wrap- pers, etc. to portray aspects of life, rather than representing objects viewed as still life. Photomontage The Berlin Dadaists - the "monteurs" (mech- anics) - would use scissors and glue rather than paintbrushes and paints to express their views of modern life through images presen- ted by the media. A variation on the collage technique, photomontage utilized actual or reproductions of real photographs printed in the press. Assemblage The assemblages were three-dimensional variations of the collage - the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless (relative to the war) pieces of work. Readymades Marcel Duchamp began to view the manufac- tured objects of his collection as objects of art, which he called "readymades". He would add signatures and titles to some, converting them into artwork that he called "readymade aided" or "rectified readymades". One such example of Duchamp’s readymade works is the urinal that was turned onto its back, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 6 signed "R. Mutt", titled "Fountain", and sub- mitted to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition that year.[10] Early practitioners For a more complete list of Dadaists, see List of Dadaists. • Guillaume Apollinaire — France • Hans Arp — Switzerland, France and Germany • Hugo Ball — Switzerland • Johannes Baader — Germany • John Heartfield — Germany • Arthur Cravan — United States • Jean Crotti — France • Theo van Doesburg — The Netherlands • Marcel Duchamp — France and United States • Max Ernst — Germany • Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven — United States, Germany • George Grosz — Germany • Marsden Hartley — United States • Raoul Hausmann — Germany • Emmy Hennings — Switzerland • Hannah Höch — Germany • Richard Huelsenbeck — Switzerland and Germany • Marcel Janco — Switzerland (born in Romania) • Clément Pansaers — Belgium • Francis Picabia — Switzerland, United States and France • Man Ray — United States and France • Meg Gröss — United States and Germany • Hans Richter — Germany, Switzerland and United States • Kurt Schwitters — Germany • Sophie Taeuber- Arp — Switzerland • Tristan Tzara — Switzerland and France (born in Romania) • Beatrice Wood — United States and France • Ilia Zdanevich (Iliazd) — Georgia and France See also • Anti-art and Anti-anti-art • Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band • The Central Council of Dada for the World Revolution • Épater la bourgeoisie • Expressionism in film • Futurism • Modernism • Surrealism • Hungry generation Notes [1] de Micheli, Mario(2006). Las vanguardias artísticas del siglo XX. Alianza Forma. p.135-137 [2] Melzer (1976, 55). [3] Richter, Hans (1965), Dada: Art and Anti- art, Oxford Univ Press [4] Schneede, Uwe M. (1979), George Grosz, His life and work, Universe Books [5] "DADA: Cities". National Gallery of Art. http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2006/ dada/cities/index.shtm. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. [6] ^ Fred S. Kleiner; Christin J. Mamiya (2006). Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (12th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing. pp. 754. [7] Marc Dachy, Dada & les dadaïsmes, Paris, Gallimard, "Folio Essais", n° 257, 1994. [8] Aurélie Verdier, L’ABCdaire de Dada, Paris, Flammarion, 2005. [9] Tom Sandqvist, DADA EAST: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire, London MIT Press, 2006. [10]^ , http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2006/ dada/cities/index.shtm [11]^ Dada, Dickermann, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2006 p443 [12]Dada, Dickermann, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2006 p99 [13]Schaefer, Robert A. (September 7, 2006), "Das Ist Dada–An Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC", Double Exposure, http://www.doubleexposure.com/ DadaExhibit.shtml [14] "Duchamp’s urinal tops art survey", BBC News December 1, 2004. [15]Marc Dachy, Dada, la révolte de l’art, Paris, Gallimard / Centre Pompidou, "Découvertes" n° 476 , 2005. [16]Locher, David (1999). "Unacknowledged Roots and Blatant Imitation: Postmodernism and the Dada Movement". Electronic Journal of Sociology 4 (1). http://www.sociology.org/content/ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 7 vol004.001/locher.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-25. [17]2002 occupation by neo-Dadaists Prague Post References • The Dada Almanac, ed Richard Huelsenbeck [1920], re-edited and translated by Malcolm Green et al., Atlas Press, with texts by Hans Arp, Johannes Baader, Hugo Ball, Paul Citröen, Paul Dermée, Daimonides, Max Goth, John Heartfield, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck, Vincente Huidobro, Mario D’Arezzo, Adon Lacroix, Walter Mehring, Francis Picabia, Georges Ribemont- Dessaignes, Alexander Sesqui, Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara. ISBN 0 947757 62 7 • Blago Bung, Blago Bung, Hugo Ball’s Tenderenda, Richard Huelsenbeck’s Fantastic Prayers, & Walter Serner’s Last Loosening - three key texts of Zurich ur- Dada. Translated and introduced by Malcolm Green. Atlas Press, ISBN 0 947757 86 4 • National Gallery of Art, Dada • Michel Sanouillet, Dada à Paris, Paris, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1965 /Flammarion, 1993 / CNRS, 2005 • Marc Dachy, Journal du mouvement Dada 1915-1923, Genève, Albert Skira, 1989 (Grand Prix du Livre d’Art, 1990) • Marc Dachy, Dada & les dadaïsmes, Paris, Gallimard, "Folio Essais", n° 257, 1994. • Marc Dachy, Dada, la révolte de l’art, Paris, Gallimard / Centre Pompidou, "Découvertes" n° 476 , 2005. • Marc Dachy, Archives Dada / Chronique, Paris, Hazan, 2005. • Gérard Durozoi, Dada et les arts rebelles, Paris, Hazan, "Guide des Arts", 2005 • Dada, catalogue d’exposition, Centre Pompidou, 2005. • Serge Lemoine, Dada, Paris, Hazan, coll. L’Essentiel. • Aurélie Verdier, L’ABCdaire de Dada, Paris, Flammarion, 2005. • Giovanni Lista, Dada libertin & libertaire, Paris, L’insolite, 2005. • Richard Huelsenbeck, Memoirs of a Dada Drummer, (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991) (paperback) • Irene Hoffman, Documents of Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago. • Richard Ball, Flight Out Of Time (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996) • Hans Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965) • Uwe M. Schneede, George Grosz, His life and work (New York: Universe Books, 1979) • Melzer, Annabelle. 1976. Dada and Surrealist Performance. PAJ Books ser. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. ISBN 0801848458. External links • Dada at the Open Directory Project • Dada art (Dada Online) includes images showing the characteristics of Dada. • The International Dada Archive includes scans of many Dada publications. • The Essential DADA Manifestos • Over 30 Dada and Futurist manifestos from 1912 to present day • Text of Hugo Ball’s 1916 Dada Manifesto • Text of Tristan Tzara’s 1918 Dada Manifesto • Excerpts of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto (1918) and Lecture on Dada (1922) • Dada Manifesto (1921) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada" Categories: Avant-garde art, Art movements, Dada, Modernism This page was last modified on 17 May 2009, at 22:11 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax- deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dada 8
