3000 word essay on my chosen subject.....April 2001

DADA and my opinion that it has more influence on modern day contemporary art than any other art movement

Introduction:

I started art in 1995 and was Secretary of Toddington Art Society for 4 years. I painted traditionally, possibly realistically…..still life, life, landscape and portrait. In 1999 I realised I wanted more from art and entered Barnfield to take my 'A' Level Art which took me onto my HNC and hopefully a Degree in Fine Art. My ideal is to enjoy myself and possibly give my art new directions.

I have loved being formally introduced to contemporary art movements within our College group but the movement which has caught my imagination is DADA….it's emergence in 1916 at the height of the 1914-18 war…..it's absurdity…….it's anti-art……it's protest at Europe's war and politics of the time. It is my opinion, which has been endorsed by my findings, that Dada has had more influence on present day contemporary art than any other art movement.

My investigation has been primarily internet based, it is a very direct method and in my opinion far surpasses any other method with regards to the information available (see printed files). Even to downloading MP3 files of Kurt Schwitters performing his sonata "The Ursonage"

The biggest archive of Dada records are to be found in Iowa University. Their curator, Timothy Shipe, writes: "Contemporary art as we know it could not have come into existence without Dada. Virtually every artistic principle and device which underlies the literature, music, theatre, and visual arts of our time was promoted, if not invented, by the Dadaists: the use of collage and assemblage; the application of aleatory techniques; the tapping of the artistic resources of the indigenous cultures of Africa, America, and Oceania; the extension of the notion of abstract art to literature and film; the breaking of the boundaries separating the different art forms from one another and from "everyday life"; the notion of art as performance; the expropriation of elements of popular culture; the notion of interaction or confrontation with the audience--everything which defines what we loosely call the "avant-garde." One would be hard pressed to name and artistic movement since 1923 which does not, at least in part, trace its roots to Dada: Surrealism, Constructivism, Lettrism, Fluxus, Pop- and Op-Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism. But the effects of Dada are not limited to the world of the arts; its impact on contemporary life has been felt from the streets of Chicago to Madison Avenue. The style of political protest which came to the forefront in the late sixties--mock trials, Yippies, Guerrilla theater--can readily be traced back to the actions of the Dadaists in Zurich, Berlin, and Paris during and after the First World War. And commercial advertising as we know it today is indebted to the Dadaists' experiments with collage and typography; indeed, two members of the Berlin Dada group founded a "Dada Advertising Agency," and the Hanover Dadaist Kurt Schwitters designed newspaper and magazine advertisements which pioneered techniques which we now take for granted. But beyond the inherent importance of the Dada movement, there are particularly urgent reasons why a Dada Archive is vital at this moment in history. The artist and writers of Dadaism did not aim to create eternal works of art and literature; they wanted to open the way to a new art and a new society by undermining and exposing what they saw as the stale cultural conventions of a decayed European civilization which had led the world into the conflagration of the Great War of 1914-18. The record of their effort is of immeasurable interest; but by the very nature of their program, the Dadaists left the documentation of their movement to the mercy of the winds of chance. The record of an art which values action over stability, the moment of interaction or confrontation between artist and public over the eternity of a published poem or an artwork in a museum, is in danger of disappearing forever. The Dadaists did publish books which can be found in libraries, create paintings and sculptures which are displayed in the major museums of two continents. But the real spirit of Dada was in events: cabaret performances, demonstrations, declarations, confrontations, the distributions of leaflets and of small magazines and newspapers which appeared for one or two issues, and actions which today we would call guerrilla theatre. But the documentation of these events was by no means as careful as that of the "Conceptual Art" and the "happenings" of the sixties and seventies. The documentation does exist--in announcements and programs of performances, in throwaway leaflets, in newspaper accounts, in the diaries and correspondence of the participants, their associates and audiences--but it has never until now been collected and made easily available to those who study the movement. Add to all this the fact that these documents were written or printed on the poor-quality paper of the World War I era, and the ephemeral nature of the record becomes still more striking. These documents must be preserved and at the same time made available to scholars. This task is one being undertaken at The University of Iowa."

The Principle Art Movements of 20th Century:

Abstract expressionism, Art deco, Ash Can, Color field painting, Conceptual art, Constructivism, Cubism, Dadaism, The Eight, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism, Minimalism, Op art, Photorealism, Pop art, Post Impressionism, Suprematism and Surrealism. Dadaism is in my opinion the Mother of them all. It is referred to as Dadaism. Correctly it should be just Dada….Dada was an attitude of mind rather than an "ism"

The History of Dadaism:

At the beginning of World War I, many people moved to Switzerland because of its political neutrality. It harboured intellectuals, refugees, conscientious objectors and lots of angry young folk generally opposed to the war and politics in Europe. Lots were Pacifists at the time. It was at the height of the war that Dada began with the opening of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. On February 1st, 1916, a German writer named Hugo Ball founded the Cabaret. On February 2, 1916, a press release was issued advertising the Cabaret; "Cabaret Voltaire". Under this name a group of young artists and writers had formed with the object of becoming a centre for artistic entertainment. Among them were Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Hans Arp, Richard Huelsenbeck, and Emmy Hennings. The Cabaret Voltaire was actually a six-piece band. Each played his instrument, passionately and with all his soul. Hugo Ball, the one responsible for this, was born in Germany and was inspired by the abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky. All of Ball's qualities were perfectly complemented by the fiery vivacity, the pugnacity, and the incredible intellectual mobility of the Rumanian poet Tristan Tzara. Hans Richter, who was also a member of the Cabaret and knew the man, claims that "Tzara was a small man, but this made him all the more uninhibited". Marcel Janco was another of the initial members of the Cabaret Voltaire. He came to Zurich as an architecture student, where he met Tzara and other soon-to-be Dadaists. An adept painter, architect, graphic arts and object maker, Janco designed and made posters for the Cabaret. He also designed and made Negro masks for the Cabaret Voltaire performances. Hans (sometimes called Jean) Arp was an Alsatian poet, painter and sculptor who worked with other groups that were, in fact, predecessors to Dada, before striving for abstraction in 1914. Then, on the declaration of war, he moved to Zurich where he became a co-founder of Dada. Richard Huelsenbeck, a German physician, arrived in Zurich and joined Dada after it's inception and gave Dada its first poetic voice. Huelsenbeck clashed terribly with Tzara. Finally, Emmy Hennings sang chansons, accompanied by Ball at the piano. The only female member of the Cabaret Voltaire, Emmy Hennings had, as may be imagined, a hard time holding her own against an otherwise all-male cast. Emmy had a thin, anti-diva-ish voice, but she had a strong personality says Richter, who continues to say that during her youth, she had met and inspired some of Germany's best poets as well as having lived most of her life exclusively in a bohemian world of writers and artists. It was the combination of all of these personalities, plus many others, both regulars and transients, that combined to make Dada what it was. That is the origin of the concept of Dada, but what about the origin of the name Dada?

To this day, it is impossible to be sure who discovered the word Dada, or what it means says Hans Richter. However, "dada" is the French term for "hobby-horse," the Romanian meaning was "yes, yes" and is said to have been selected at random from a dictionary by Tristan Tzara. Dada was actually the name selected for the periodical, which was meant to present Dada to the public, and was then applied to the movement itself. The movement had no programme, wanted nothing, and created only with the intention of proving that creation was nothing. In an effort to express their rejection of all aesthetic and social values, the Dada artists often used artistic and literary techniques that were deliberately incomprehensible. They used novel materials like discarded objects found in the streets, and tried methods like allowing chance to determine the outcome of their work. Their theatrical performances were intended to shock the spectators into re-evaluating their current aesthetic values. Dada filled its statements with incoherence because they believed that life itself is incoherent, and played havoc with art because so-called art lovers had lost the concept of art as a game.

But the real spirit of Dada was in "events". And what "events" these must have been at the time!. At the Cabaret Votaire the walls were decorated with their art work and the entertainment was bizarre; poems were recited simultaneously in French, German and English. Ball, dressed in an outrageous cardboard costume, chanted his sound poetry. Huelsenbeck punctuated the proceedings with a continual drumbeat. Further cabarets were performed using masks made by Marcel Janco and dances were impromptu. Hugo Ball later described it as: "Each mask dictated not only what costume should be worn with it but also certain precise, pathetic gestures, which approached madness. Although we would have not suspected it five minutes earlier, we were soon moving in a bizarre ballet, draped and adorned with incredible objects, trying to outdo each other as we danced around the room" The more the audience were infuriated and outraged by their antics the better.

And so it went on. The programmes published for these events being just nonsensical, but important now in their use of new art methods, collage and typographical experiments. Their published programmes and handouts give us more idea of the period than individuals published art, literature and poems of the time.

One of Tzara's sample poems:

"DADA is a virgin microbe DADA is against the high cost of living DADA is a limited company for the exploitation of ideas DADA has 391 different attitudes and colours according to the sex of the president It changes…affirms….says the opposite at the same time….no importance…shouts…..goes fishing DADA is against the future. DADA is dead. DADA is absurd. Long live DADA DADA is not a literary school, howl."

Caberet Voltaire closed after being open it seems every night for 5 months.

Richter wrote, "Dada not only had no programme, it was against all programmes". Dada's only program was to have no programme… and at that moment in history, it was just this that gave the movement its explosive power to unfold in all directions, free of aesthetic or social constraint. And explode and unfold it did, all over Europe and across the Atlantic.

Hans Arp wrote: "The bourgeois regarded Dadaism as a dissolute monster, a revolutionary villian, a barbarous Asiatic, plotting against his bells, his safe-deposits, his honours list. The Dadaists thought up tricks to rob the bourgeois of his sleep….The Dadaists gave the bourgeois a sense of confusion and distant, yet mighty rumbling, so that his bells began to buzz, his safes frowned, and his honours list broke out in spots"

Almost simultaneously to its birth in Zurich, Dada emerged in New York, where the Spaniard Picabia, the Frenchman Duchamp, and the American Man Ray made up the creative trio which led the New York Dada group. In addition to their nihilistic art, this group utilised their publications, The Blind Man, Rongwrong, and New York Dada, to demolish aesthetic standards. Marcel Duchamp, a dynamic leader of the New York group, created not anti-art, but what he liked to call "dry art," which was art which included no aesthetic notion, even emotion or judgment. Duchamp was famous for his so-called "ready-mades," which were ordinary commercial products displayed as art, most notably a store-bought bottle rack and a urinal. Richter's interpretation: "The bottle-rack says 'Art is junk.' The urinal says 'Art is a trick'". It was his imperturbable severity in rejecting the easy course, and his power of intellectual concentration that gave his actions their real value. He became the 'ascetic of non-sense.' Even after Duchamp abandoned painting in 1923, he still had a strong influence over the avant-garde, and they treated him like a referee to decide who should be allowed to join their group; he was treated this way not because of what he had done, but what he had chosen not to do. As Duchamp was the 'ascetic of non-sense," Francis Picabia was the "aristocrat of disorder." Rich, witty and volatile, Picabia used painting as a springboard from which to make giddy and perilous leaps. In addition to Duchamp's reviews, Picabia also founded an artistic review for New York Dada called 391 in January of 1917. It was a collaboration between Picabia and his friend Duchamp that created the L.H.O.O.Q., subtitled Elle A Chaud au Cul ("She has hot bits of tail") in 1919. It was Man Ray, however, who created Boardwalk, which became the trademark of the New York Dada group. From the very start Ray was a publicity expert with all the tricks of the trade at his fingertips, and he brought to Dada the 'Uselessness Effect' As the New York and Zurich groups matured, their influences continued to spread, and in 1917, the Dada movement was transmitted to Berlin, where it took on a more political character.

Because of Germany's loss of World War I and the widespread influence of the Bolshevik Revolution and communism, Dada in Berlin had a very different tone from Dada in Zurich and New York. The situation and the city itself were totally different, because there was a real revolution going on, and Dada joined in. Richard Huelsenbeck and others from Zurich Dada moved to Berlin to join the action, and other artists emerged as Dadaists, too. Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who was influenced by the anti-naturalist mood during his stay in Munich in 1906. His famous 'metaphysical interiors' in turn influenced Berlin Dada. Johannes Baader disrupted services at the Berlin Cathederal, as well as the new national assembly at Weimar. Max Ernst was another painter in the Berlin group. Ernst's paintings were shown at der Sturm, a German exhibition for Dada work. A co-editor of several Dada periodicals, he was a great innovator of visual arts who co-founded another Dada group in the German City of Cologne with Hans Arp, whom he met in Berlin. Dada pamphlets were distributed on city streets or showered from church balconies. Mock adverts were inserted in newspapers.

A poet named Kurt Schwitters was another important figure in Berlin Dada, despite the fact that he was turned away from membership in the group because of a disagreement between him and Huelsenbeck. This did not stop him, however, and he set up his own group in Hanover called Merz, taken from the word Commerzbank (Commercial Bank) which turned up in one of his collages. Schwitters was known for his collages composed of waste paper and similarly nonsensical materials at the time. Berlin Dada was definitely more about politics than art, both within the complex relationships of the artists and on the wider scale of the revolution in Germany.

But Dada's direction changed once again, as the movement set down roots in Paris. There another influential threesome took the stage in Paris in 1919, with the foundation of the anti-literary review Littérature. The founders were three young poets, André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupault. Tristan Tzara also came to Paris, and his influence turned Littérature from a simply avant-garde periodical into something they liked to call genuinely Dada.

Thus, New York Dada had a visual emphasis, Berlin Dada a political emphasis, and Paris Dada a literary emphasis.

Dada began in 1916, and ended in 1922. What did it accomplish in those 6 years? Many say that Dada was victorious. But how could a movement that opposed reason and wanted no program succeed when there was, by its own definition, nothing to succeed in? Even though Dada claimed to want nothing, it is obvious that its nihilism was working toward a goal: to persuade the public to re-evaluate their current social and aesthetic standards. The emergence of Surrealism directly after the death of Dada proved Dada's success in both of those areas.

By 1940, George Grosz, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and André Breton were living in the USA and they exerted a great influence on young American artists.

Dada's hard work paid off and the Surrealists picked up their motives. Dada endeavoured to uncover human optimism and goodwill, and Surrealism did exactly the same thing in its own way.

Conclusion:

This theme has carried over in art up to the present day and much Dada is still with us. It is everywhere as seen in Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Collage, Photomontage, Art related to chance, Ready mades, Found art and just about all contemporary art. It is not just limited to art and can be seen in films, typography and indeed in the style of political protest.

Examples of this phenomenon are illustrated by the birth of Punk in the 70's. Malcom McLaren teamed up with Vivienne Westwood to manufacture and promote outrageous clothes. McLaren learnt all his politics at Croydon Art School with Jamie Reid. Earlier, the 1968 riots in France had not escaped their notice, McLaren was well aware of Dada and his opinion of how it could be utilised.

They went from strength to strength and ultimately McLaren got into the music business to attempt to give the New York Dolls a new image with Westwood's clothes. Westwood changed her shop name to "SEX". The UK music business was only for the "big boys". The mood of the country was in decline with Thatcherism. McLaren ultimately got his own band together, "The Sex Pistols" and the rest is history. Anarchy in the UK !…..Reid did the posters Dada style, photomontage and collage. Just as the Dadaist put a moustache on the Mona Lisa, Punk put a safety pin through the Queens lip. The Sex Pistols, against all odds, broke into the establishment of the music industry and went to the top. They toppled quickly but the Punk movement carries on to this present day. Vivienne Westwood remains a top fashion designer.

It is my conclusion that DADA has done more than any other art movement to influence contemporary art of today.

Bibliography:

Gombritch, 16th Edition of The Story of Art

New York Dada, Francis M Naumann

Performance…..Live Art 1909 to present, RoseLee Goldberg

Taschen, Masterpieces of Western Art Dada & Surrealism Reviewed, Robert Short

http://www.scruz.net/~kokoshi/dada.htm

http://www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/dada.html

http://www.its.uidaho.edu/Eng-258_1/modernists.homepage.htm

http://archives.star.arabia.com/00302/FE3.html

http://www.geocities.com/Shalyndria13/ref1.htm http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/tzara.html

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/schwitters.html

http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/literature/5ns/index.htm

http://www.peak.org/~dadaist/English/Graphics/index.html

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/dada-def.html

http://www.sprengel-museum.de/english/06AktAusstelung1999/merz/merz_c_e.html

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/ray.html

http://www.manray-photo.com/html/bio/framebio_gbo2.htm

http://www.mital-u.ch/PunkWave/punkwave.html