Was Dada anti-art?
Simon Matthew Bowyer
Perhaps someone out there can answer whether Dada was anti-art or not?
In a few words I feel that, in the context of the time, and in respect to
what had gone before it it was indeed anti-art. However this has led to a
few arguments with someone with an opposing view. So perhaps someone can
help bury this once and for all.
Simon Bowyer
Itza Joqual
lhub...@reading.ac.uk says...
>
>
>Perhaps someone out there can answer whether Dada was anti-art or not?
Of course it was.
DADA WAS ANTI-ART. READ ON.
Academic American Encyclopedia
Danbury, CT: Grolier Electronic Publishing, April, 1995 update.
Data (c) 1991, Grolier Electronic Publishing.
Dada was an international, avant-garde art and literary
movement that flourished between 1915 and 1922. The Dadaists'
declared purpose was to protest the senseless violence of World
War I, which they believed had made all established moral and
aesthetic values meaningless. The term itself means
"hobbyhorse" in French and was supposedly chosen at random from
the dictionary. Dada promulgated anti-art and non-sense,
declaring that art did not depend in any way on established
rules or on craftsmanship; the only law was that of chance,
and the only reality that of the imagination. Dada is often
viewed as nihilistic (see NIHILISM), but it can also be seen as
a kind of thoughtful irrationality, a way toward liberation
achieved by penetrating into the unknown regions of the mind.
Dada appeared nearly simultaneously in Zurich, New York City,
and Paris, and soon took hold in Germany. It finally
concentrated in Paris.
DADA--DADA ART
In Zurich, where political exiles of all kinds took refuge
during World War I, Dada was initiated by Hugo Ball, a German
actor and playwright; Jean ARP, an Alsatian painter and poet;
Richard Huelsenbeck, a German poet; Marcel Janco, a Romanian
artist; and Tristan TZARA, a Romanian poet. Together they
founded the Cabaret Voltaire--a theater, literary gathering
place, and exhibition center. They offered scandalous and
mysterious entertainments, lectured, and exhibited together a
variety of artists such as Arp, Giorgio de CHIRICO, Max ERNST,
Wassily KANDINSKY, Paul KLEE, and Pablo PICASSO. Arp
illustrated the works of Huelsenbeck and Tzara, and created a
new type of COLLAGE by tearing pieces of colored paper and
arranging them according to chance. In 1918, Tzara wrote the
manifesto for the movement.
Marcel DUCHAMP, who in 1915 had moved to New York City and in
the same year coined the term "ready-made," was the chief
anticipator of Dada. For his ready-mades, Duchamp took mundane
objects such as snow shovels, urinals, and bottle racks, gave
them titles, and signed them, thus turning their context from
utility to aesthetics. Duchamp also invented word games, made
an abstract film, and edited several reviews in the United
States from 1913. His friend Francis PICABIA worked with him
and with Man RAY in New York on the Dada review 291; Picabia
founded the 391 review in Barcelona in 1917.
In 1919 Max Ernst launched Dadaism in Cologne with his friend
Arp. Ernst's type of collage technique was an important
contribution to the Dada cause, as was the collage-painting of
Kurt SCHWITTERS, the chief figure of Dada in Hanover, Germany,
who called Dada Merz, "something cast-off, junk."
Dada emerged as a group activity in Paris when a Dada salon
opened at the Montaigne Gallery in 1922. Dada has had a long
and significant influence in art to the present time, and was
the subject of a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art in 1989.
DADA--DADA LITERATURE
Dada found literary expression in France--principally in the
form of nonsense poems and random combinations of words--with
the writings of Louis ARAGON, Andre BRETON, and Paul ELUARD.
They founded the revue Litterature in 1919; it was published
until 1924. These writers soon abandoned the Dada movement,
however, and turned to SURREALISM. BARBARA CAVALIERE
Bibliography: Ades, D., et al., In the Mind's Eye: Dada and
Surrealism (1985); Erickson, John, Dada: Performance, Poetry,
and Art (1984); Hedges, I., Languages of Revolt: Dada and
Surrealist Literature and Film (1983); Lemoine, S., Dada
(1987); Lippard, L., ed., Dadas On Art (1971); Matthews, J.
H., The Theatre in Dada and Surrealism (1974); Motherwell,
Robert, ed., The Dada Painters and Poets, 2d ed. (1989);
Richter, Hans, Dada: Art and Anti-Art (1965; repr. 1985);
Rubin, William, Dada and Surrealist Art (1969); Verkauf,
Willy, Dada: Monograph of a Movement (1957).
--
********************* 1845 - 1995 ****************************
*** From Deep in the Heart of Texas where we're celebrating ***
*** 150 Years of Mexicanization. Itza Joqual. ***
**************************************************************************
MrTay
>perhaps someone can
>help bury this once and for all.
I think this one is unburyable. Maybe that's the beauty of Dada. I'm sure
you can find plenty of arguments on both sides, but here's a few
less-than-scholarly thoughts...
Seems to me, one underlying premise of Dadaism, is to challenge the way we
label things "art." Anything, by Dada thinking, can be viewed as art
(think of Duchamp's bottle rack). In essence it's a statement about
perception, and in a way anti-art.
I find a grain of real truth in there. Many Eastern philosophies also hold
that one can find aesthetic and spiritual value in any object... no matter
how lowly or grandiose. It is a way of seeing. In other words, "art" is
contained within the viewer, and is not externally/culturally determined.
Dadaism also played off of odd juxtapositions - of objects and words. In
that sense, I find it is close to poetry or surrealism. A very bold
example of "thinking outside the box."
Dadaism was also the first art "movement" to slam the idea of
craftsmanship. Until that time, artists were also viewed as craftspeople
... they displayed special technical skill. Dada didn't require that...
fill a bird cage with suger cubes and you're on your way! In that sense,
Dada may also have been anti-art.
Finally, I think Dada had the essential ingredient of celebrity. Duchamp
was charismatic and relatively well known figure at the time (I'm
speculating...wasn't he?). Any old Joe DuSchmoe doing "Dada" probably
wouldn't have received much attention.
MrTay
C'est la vie.
Thomas Morphis
yes and no.
rbgann
(no doubt so that I could be witty):
> fill a bird cage with suger cubes and you're on your way!
But only if the sugar cubes are made out of marble and finely crafted to
resemble in all ways (but weight) sugar cubes. And don't forget to give it
a witty title like _Why not sneeze_.
> C'est la vie.
er, isn't that "eros c'est la vie"?
rbgann
"the only thing gann takes seriously is gann" -- steve erickson, Arc d'X
Wray Kephart
X Simon Matthew Bowyer wrote:
X >perhaps someone can
X >help bury this once and for all.
X you can find plenty of arguments on both sides, but here's a few
X Seems to me, one underlying premise of Dadaism, is to challenge the way we
X label things "art." Anything, by Dada thinking, can be viewed as art
X (think of Duchamp's bottle rack). In essence it's a statement about
X perception, and in a way anti-art.
In that way; it is just unusual; the northern coast native
americans have done it for centuries; so have others.
Its a form of art that includes the experience of living other
than pictoral <2 dimension>. Its as you say a comment deep about
that perception of life.
X I find a grain of real truth in there. Many Eastern philosophies also hold
X that one can find aesthetic and spiritual value in any object... no matter
X how lowly or grandiose. It is a way of seeing. In other words, "art" is
X contained within the viewer, and is not externally/culturally determined.
Its the perameter each individual decides is worth remembering..im convinced
some events are elevated to a status; and each worthy within its occurance.
Joseph Bouys was one of the best at explaining time, temp and memorable
event; he could have been a Tibetan monk on that level.
X Dadaism also played off of odd juxtapositions - of objects and words. In
X that sense, I find it is close to poetry or surrealism. A very bold
X example of "thinking outside the box."
It played off convention too; had a sense of humor.
Kephart
MrTay
>MrTay:
> fill a bird cage with suger cubes and you're on your way!
>>But only if the sugar cubes are made out of marble and finely crafted to
>>resemble in all ways (but weight) sugar cubes.
>>And don't forget to give it
>>a witty title like _Why not sneeze_.
Right you are! But he could have used real sugar cubes... to pretty much
the same effect (I'd forgotten they were marble).
> C'est la vie.
>>er, isn't that "eros c'est la vie"?
Right again!... Pardon my French, but all I can do is cite my
disclaimer... "here's a few less-than-scholarly thoughts"
Thanks for the comments...
Cheers
MrTay
Acting mayor of Simpleton
va...@cwu.edu
lhub...@reading.ac.uk says...
>
>
>Perhaps someone out there can answer whether Dada was anti-art or not?
Yes it was touted to be anti-art. A lot of art through history can be
said to be anti-art. "He will be the death of painting," was first
said of Caravaggio in the seventeenth century, and much art since then
has had anti-art ambitions. Duchamp was perhaps the most succesful, and
Dubuffet was the most vitriolic.
vance
Nathan Tichenor
: In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.950620...@suma3.reading.ac.uk>,
: vance
but don't you think it was more against a particular kind of art? the
capital 'A' art which equals transcendence, truth, beauty, eternity etc.
because dada just redefined what could be considered art:
-"Art is art for seventy years then it becomes history"
-"It is not about plastic beauty"
only by using shock tactics could dada dispell the bourgeois concept of
art.
NT
Mani Deli
Ti> only by using shock tactics could dada dispell the bourgeois concept
Ti> of art.
Nothing is more bourgeois then Matisse, Dufy, and Picasso's "Mother and Child"
Dada didn't dispell anything. By 1923 it was washed up. The only credit one can
attribute to Dada is that it anticipated most of our present day Modern
Academic Crap and postmodern babble by about 70 years.
Mani Deli
... No skill no art.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
Nathan Tichenor
: Nothing is more bourgeois then Matisse, Dufy, and Picasso's "Mother and Child"
: Dada didn't dispell anything. By 1923 it was washed up. The only credit one can
: attribute to Dada is that it anticipated most of our present day Modern
: Academic Crap and postmodern babble by about 70 years.
Matisse, Dufy and Picasso were hardly dadaists.
NT
Steamdonky
let it rest at the drunken discussion that started it. Those who can do,
those who can't Duchamp.