Dada
Dada is a strange movement to say the least. Ask most people what they know about it and you’ll get a lot of confused looks and maybe a few people mentioning magazine collages, surrealist poetry, or a urinal in an art museum. How are these things related? As it turns out, Dadaism is incredibly influential, inspiring everything from punk rock to monty python, and even modern graphic design.
Through my research and viewing of the 2016 BBC documentary “Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels”, one thing stood out to me as being at the very center of Dada: Rejection of authority and establishments.
The movement started in Zurich in 1916, as a protest against World War 1. The group of artists who would become the first Dadaists were disgusted by the war, and how devoid of actual purpose it had. The war had started as a small conflict and escalated to the point where everyone was fighting simply not to lose. These artists were outraged by this, and decided to respond by creating art as meaningless as the war itself.(1)
The first dadaist works were performances of poetry at the Zurich nightclub “Cabaret Voltaire”. The performances included nonsensical costumes, poetry being spoken in multiple languages at the same time, and avant garde musical accompaniment. These artists, including Max Ernst and Hugo Ball, aimed to be as subversive and shocking as possible, breaking every rule of what art was supposed to be. This was to shock the public into thinking more deeply about authority and establishments, and what they really meant.
The name of the movement ‘Dada’ was chosen at random from a dictionary, and stuck due to the childish and absurd sound of the word itself, mirroring the absurdity at the core of dadaism. While the Dadaists in Zurich had political influences and intentions, their work remained simply surreal at first glance. However, Dadaism would take hold in Berlin next, and take a more overt political stance. Which is precisely what Hannah Höch did. Her works criticized sexism, the German government and military, capitalism, and many other elements of society.
Höch’s distinctive photomontage style and leftist political message have since become instrumental to the Dadaist movement becoming iconic all on their own.
Arguably one of the most influential pieces of Dadaist artwork is Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”, which to put it simply, is a urinal that was submitted to an art museum. To give some background. The New York Dada scene, which Duchamp was a part of, was different from the political ones of Zurich and Berlin, yet still retained the rebellious nature of Dada. The Dadaists of New York were interested in subverting the rules of art, and challenged what it meant for something to be considered ‘art’ in the first place. (2)
Dadaism is a movement that spans every medium and discipline imaginable, and arguably created new ones. It's a movement that’s hard to describe by its very nature, its defined by its politics, yet not every dadaist made political art. It’s offset typography at odd angles has inspired graphic designers, it changed comedy with its subversive nature, and inspired punk rock imagery with its political message. Despite how little is known about Dada to the general public, and how strange it might seem at first, it’s a fascinating movement that’s undeniably one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century.
(2) Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels
First image: Hugo Ball performing in the Cabaret Voltaire
Second image: Hannah Höch: Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany
Third Image: Marcel Duchamp, Fountain
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