The Influence Of Dada Before Dada

Impactful across the globe, both Dada and Surrealism were artistic movements created in the early 20th century that were significant in redefining modern art today. The Dada movement came about in 1916 through the performance of Hugo Ball’s sound poem “Karawane” at the Cabaret Voltaire that he opened with his partner, nightclub singer Emmy Hennings, in Zurich, Switzerland. The poem made absolutely no sense, purposely, and it didn’t have to. Ball would also dress in wild costumes for his performances as seen below:

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that grew out of dissatisfaction with traditional social values and conventional artistic practices during World War I. Dada artists were disillusioned by the social values that led to the war and sought to expose accepted and often repressive conventions of order and logic by shocking people into self-awareness. Marcel Duchamp was one of the first to participate in this movement. He is known for his satirical or humorous content and the use of accompanying text. Duchamp began to grow disappointed with “retinal” art though, and soon stopped painting on canvases altogether. He then moved out of the already existing boundaries of art into was is now called conceptual art. His monumental work is known today as The Bride Bare by Her Bachleors, Even, or The Large Glass. Duchamp worked on this piece for eight years, until he abandoned it in what he referred to as a “definitively unfinished” state. This piece of work includes humor, random chance, pessimism, and anti-art; these four elements are often found in Dada art.

Dada art was a radical and cynical artistic movement, which arose in reaction to the failings of society that led to the First World War. Dada revolted against the recognized tropes of the art world it sought to escape. It dismantled the image of art as the heightened, unique object by contradicting the established traditions and forms of western art to that time. This essay will discuss four of the ways Dada artists pursued this goal, namely through the use of everyday objects, eliminating meaning and function, the use of chance and a dismissal of art history. This essay will then argue that through these means, Dada artists successfully undermined the solemnity with which the art world regarded itself. Dada’s combination of wit and venomous sarcasm presented to the early 20th century a pointed re-articulation of its own reflection, making apparent the absurdity and meaninglessness Dada artists saw in the modern world. In the face of WWI’s atrocities, and the complex, ego-driven politics that had delivered it to the world, Dada rose as a rebuttal. This essay will conclude with observations of the influence of this short-lived but pervasive polemic on contemporary art practice.

The three works that will be compared are Marcel Duchamp’s Bottlerack, Barnett Newman’s Eve and Ana Mendieta’s Silueta. Placed together the pieces show us three varying genres, each from different periods in the twentieth century. Between the artists we also see obvious connections in how they have challenged the spectator, and the art world alike, in viewing their art. All artists removed ‘something’, be it a body in Silueta or the ‘purpose’ of the Bottlerack and Eve’s figurative form or vanishing point. All were met with a critique of the processes in which their work were produced and likewise they also received admiration for their forward thinking, progressive art.

Similarly in rejection to the current reality, the Dada movement protested logic and reason. Established by Tristan Tzara who wrote a Manifesto for the movement stating the Dada is, “a protest with it’s whole being engaged in destructive action.” Ironically, the reality the Dadaists was protesting against was World War 1, but their response to the war increased violence. It was the disgust of the false, good manners and incomprehensible logic of the politicians and those in power that the Dadaists criticized. The rage of the war merely justified their destructive spontaneity. Relating to the surrealists, they believed the simplest act consists of going out into the streets, revolver in hand and firing at random into the crowd as often as possible. Surrealist Louis Aragon encouraged such responses saying, “I have always placed the spirit of revolt above any politics.” Although the surrealists emerged with a stronger focus

Ernst was not only the primary pioneer of Surrealism but also the pioneer of the Dada movement. He was a German painter, poet, sculptor, and graphic artist whose work still remains influential. Max Ernst’s vision of the modern world as irrational became the basis of his artwork. He mocked social conventions and highly criticized the western culture. Among the most famous of Ernst’s works are Celebes (1921), Here Everything is Still Floating (1920), Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale (1924), and The Fireside Angel (1937) among

Dada was an artistic and literary movement, this arose as a reaction to World War one. Many citizens believed that Dada was actually the cause of World War one, this movement likes to take the form of ‘anti-art’. Therefore, how you can claim everything is art but in reality, nothing is art. For example, take the painting ‘Fountain’ by a Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp it is a readymade painting of an unused urinal. Which is basically implying that he rejected art and thought that we should focus on the artist 's idea more rather than it being crafted. Therefore, using a urinal and labelling it as ‘art’, get’s Duchamp’s point across that a work of art should be the artists idea instead of it being crafted. When looking at Dadaism by Tristan Tzara, there were some interesting quotes. For example, “Like everything in life, Dada is useless. Dada is without pretension, as life should be.” (Tzara, 1918). This quote intrigues me, as Tzara is stating that all art is useless and that Dada is pretension and that is how life should be. This can be used as an example of how Dadaism was inspired by

At the turn of the century Paris was one of the capitals of culture and art to the outside world. However, the truth of the matter was that this taboo-ridden society was being run by an aristocracy that was repressing the arts. Naturally, when World War 1 broke out, the suppressed French society finally had a release and a rebellion against order arose. WWI specifically affected the theatre of French and it’s aftermath. From the ashes of war the avant-garde theatre grew and styles such as Dadaism and Surrealism were born. It was both the climate of culture before the war and the devastation of the war that lead to the outbreak of avant-garde theatre in France.

Not only was Dada unexpected due to its break from tradition and the conventional bourgeoisie attitude, it was also unpredictable from start to finish. According to George Huget ‘Not a day passed without some kind of mention of Dada’ At the movements height it’s presence could be found in nearly all media outlets with the press disputing what direction it would take next. Huget notes that ‘for some it was the symbol of abyss, a dangerous madness for others a delirious frolic.’ However all where alarmed and thus Dada’s already entropic nature was furthered as it had an audience unwilling watching and anticipating its every move.

Dadaism came into the world to confuse all the peers that look upon the work of art each person made to express themselves, this can be for emotion, reaction, love or maybe just because they want to confuse everyone. It all began in 1915, the movement instantly caught fire and spread practically everywhere, no matter where you looked there was some sort of DADA to be seen. Sometimes you didn’t even know it! The artist found inside of this essay will be: Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch and finally Johannes Baader.

An artist by the name of Hugo Ball, who was a crucial figure in constructing the foundations of Dadaism, created performance pieces that is now one of the well-known characteristics of what expresses the Dada movement . Ball’s poetry performances were in a way, a response to the audacities of what WWI had presenting the world with. According to Demos, Hugo Ball found that “language was deeply discredited due to its use as propaganda that “justified” war,” and continued to express that “[t]he journalistic and political abuses of language... [meant that it] must be dismantled and reconstructed anew” . That being stated, it can be assumed that his nonsensical poems, in Karawane at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 can be understood as an extrapolation

This paper is an explanatory paper by a cultured gentleman on Avant-Garde art and the challenges facing Avant-Garde. More specifically, it comes off as a rant against the bourgeois and proletariat for failing to appreciate Avant-Garde art and instead preferring to art he calls the rear-guard art or Kitsch. This work was printed by the Parisian review during fall, 1939.

Launched from New York, it was the forerunner for American Pop Art. The art world at this time, was controlled by strict expectations and policies, of Abstract Expressionism. This class of art focused on deep emotion, Psychiatrics, folklore, with some muse coming from the desolation of the war. This art provoked very serious, sensitive and esteemed emotions in its viewers: there was no joking around. As always, ridged boundaries and rules are meant to be broken. An uprising broke out in the art scene; artists challenged emotionally contemplative pieces with routine life. (Wolf 2015) They teased at the seriousness of Abstract Expressionism by taking objects of low regard, and blowing their importance out of proportion, by size and color. “Neo-Dada artists often encouraged viewers to use[…]critical thinking generated by contradictions, absurd juxtapositions, coded narratives, and other mixed signals[...]”(Wolf 2015). Leading into the Dada Movement, which supported the same principles of ridiculing capitalism and cultural commodities. This new faction took a more playful approach, by teasing, using humor, high contrast, and emphasis on a larger

Gathering in Hugo Balls’ Cabaret Voltaire for spontaneous readings, performances and exhibitions, a group of early avant-gardes mainly of German and French origin, formed the organization known as Dada. (Justin Wolf’s Dada)

(See Visual 2) The title explains how this work was created – Arp tore up pieces of paper and let them fall on to a background before sticking them down. The anarchistic and unpredictable way in which this piece was created illustrates the typical mindset of a Dada artist and the movement itself. Soon after arriving in Zurich, the Dada movement spread to New York, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, before it finally erupted in Paris. The leader of the Dada movement in Paris was a poet named Andre Breton. Breton is an important figure as he would go on to become the leader of the Paris Surrealist movement as well.