He Dadaism Was an early twentieth-century art movement that rejected the idea of artistic movements. It began in Zurich during World War I as a collaborative effort between painters, writers and playwrights, as well as other types of artists. It was motivated by the need to accept the horrors of war.
Dadaism challenged prevailing attitudes about art, culture and the legacy of Western rationalism. The Dadaists wanted to alter the traditional concept of art.
In doing so, they saw themselves as liberating human beings in the trappings of an oppressive bourgeois culture.
Officially, Dada was not a movement, its artists were not artists, and their art was not art. That sounds fairly easy, but there is a bit more in the history of Dada than this simplistic explanation.
One of the main themes and motives of the Dada movement was social criticism. The Dadaists were substantially political in their motives.
They rejected the modernist conception of the autonomy of art. Art in its various forms - theater, visual arts, literature and music - had to present critical perspectives to criticize society.
You may also like These poems of Dada .
Main characteristics of Dadaism
Dadaist philosophy was deliberately negative. It was anti-establishment, anti-artistic, and even anti-social in that it scoffed at bourgeois society that sponsored state violence as exemplified by World War I.
However, in its determination to present its nihilistic ideas in new ways, uncontaminated by the bourgeois tradition of the fine arts, Dadaism invented a series of forms and techniques of experimental art that have contributed in various ways to the development of that tradition.
This was not at all apparent at the time, as Dada activists began to produce a series of cabaret performances, meetings designed to provoke controversy and even riots in support of their subversive agenda.
1. The beginnings of Dada
The driving force behind Dada in Zurich was Tristan Tzara, aided by his volatile henchman Francis Picabia, recently returned from America and Barcelona.
Together, Tzara and Picabia preached an increasingly subversive view of art and a nihilistic vision of life itself.
From 1917 to 1921, they produced 8 issues of Dada magazine, which appeared in German and French. However, with the end of the war, Switzerland's importance as a neutral refuge diminished.
Richard Huelsenbeck (1892-1974), a founding member of Dadaism left for Berlin, Picabia went to Paris, and when Tzara followed him in 1920, the Dada phase in Zurich was over.
2. More than art, a political movement
After the First World War, the Dadaist activists dispersed throughout Europe, congregating mainly in Paris and Berlin.
Berlin's Dadaism was satirical and highly political: its objectives were defined more strictly and accurately than elsewhere, and its main weapons were periodic, including Club Dada and Der Dada, which employed a rapid use of explosive typography and photomontage .
The Berlin artists of Dadaism stood out for their use of"readymades", especially the photomontage and the first forms of assembly, as well as their enthusiasm for the technology.
3. Essence of Dadaism
One of the main characteristics of the Dada movement was social criticism. Dadaists were inherently political in their motives. They rejected the modernist conception of the autonomy of art.
Art in its various forms - theater, visual arts, literature and music - had to present critical perspectives to criticize society.
The Dadaists saw World War I as a logical consequence of bourgeois culture and civilization and its emphasis on rationalism and nationalism.
The starting point for Dada was the rejection of all"isms", as well as all cultural norms, laws and values.
4. Change of ideology
The rejection of cultural standards and values also implied rejection of"art". The Dadaists were considered an anti-artistic movement.
Two of the primary assumptions of the traditional concept of art are that the work of art is original and that the truth value of the work of art is eternal. Dadaism undermined both assumptions.
Dadaism used various types of prefabricated materials, such as photographs, paintings, and mass-produced objects in their works of art.
The emphasis is on both the idea and the materials used. An everyday object becomes an art because it is placed in an artistic context.
Marcel Duchamp's"Urinal"is one of the most infamous examples of this approach. With respect to the second point, the Dadaists emphasized the fleeting and ephemeral character of the artistic object.
Various types of"events"and pieces of action were put on the scene to emphasize this idea.
5. Impact value
One way to challenge the prevailing cultural standards and cultural values of bourgeois culture was to deliberately shake the audience.
Dadaists used shock as a means to challenge public sensitivity and complacency in the contemporary world.
In addition to challenging the rules of art, Dada's intention was to use art to encourage the public to think critically about all the rules.
6. Irrationalism
Dadaism equated rationalism with bourgeois culture and, as a consequence, as an element for the art of rejection and overcoming, Dadaism embraced the irrational in various ways. It was strongly influenced by Freud's theories of the unconscious.
He adopted the Freudian idea of free association as a method to free the unconscious from the mechanisms of censorship of conscience. Dadaist poets and writers use free association as a writing tool.
Another approach to subvert conscious control of the work of art was to incorporate randomness and randomness into the creation of the work of art.
7. Aesthetics of dadaist art
The branch of Cologne, Germany, (1919-1920) was less political and more biased toward aesthetics, if only in the sense of being unsightly. It included two major artists: Jean Arp and Max Ernst.
The latter, along with John Heartfield, exploited techniques of satirical collage using popular printed material, representing the grotesque and the strangely erotic, in a style that announced the Parisian surrealism.
8. The use of garbage in Dada
In 1918, German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) applied to join the Dadaists of Berlin, but was rejected for his non-political attitude. As a result he launched his own branch of dadaism in Hannover, Germany.
This new historical trend of Dadaism, and Schwitters' unique and unadulterated dedication to the ideas of Dadaism, led to a prolific production of works of art built with urban rubbish and found objects that had a great influence on later movements like Junk Art, Assemblage and Arte Povera.
9. The Corporation and Dadaism reach America
Dadaism practiced by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Man Ray (1890-1976), and the cubist painter Francis Picabia (1879-1953) began in New York.
Duchamp and Ray also collaborated with Katherine Dreier on the creation of the"Societe Anonyme", an association to promote the growth and appreciation of modern art in America.
10. Divergences and end of Dadaism
In 1921, many of the pioneers of Dadaism, such as Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Francis Picabia and Tristan Tzara, had arrived in Paris, mixing with several French poets like André Breton (1896-1966) and Louis Aragón.
As a result, Dadaism in Paris was noted for its theatrical, multicultural, but not less irreverent, activities. But the Dada movement could not contain the divergent ideas and personalities of its members.
In particular, the innovative and curious Breton encountered dying nihilists such as Tzara and Picabia, and when Dada was left to establish a new movement (known as surrealism) many Dadaists followed it and the movement dissolved.
References
- Huelsenbeck, Richard, Memoirs of a Dada Drummer, (University of California Press) ISBN 9780520073708
- Kleiner, Fred S. and Mimiya, Christin J., Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 12th edition, Wadsworth Publishing, (2005). ISBN 0155050907
- Sandqvist, Tom (2006). Dada East: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire. The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-19507-2.
- Dafydd Jones. (2006). Dada Culture: Critical Texts on the Avant-garde. Google Books: Rodopi.
- Michel Sanouillet. (2009). Given in Paris. Google Books: MIT Press.
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Anne Umland, Adrian Sudhalter. (2008). Given in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Google Books: The Museum of Modern Art.
- Rudolf E. Kuenzli. (Oct 15, 2006). Dadaist. Google Books: Phaidon Press Limited.
- Stephen C. Foster, Harriett Watts. (2004). Dada and the Press. Google Books: G.K. Hall.