Grand opening of the first Dada exhibition: International Dada Fair, Berlin, 5 June 1920. The central figure hanging from the ceiling is an effigy of a German officer with a pig's head. From left to right:Raoul Hausmann,Hannah Höch (sitting), Otto Burchard,Johannes Baader,Wieland Herzfelde, Margarete Herzfelde, Dr. Oz (Otto Schmalhausen),George Grosz andJohn Heartfield.[1]
Dada (/ˈdɑːdɑː/) orDadaism was an anti-establishmentart movement that developed in 1915 in the context of theGreat War and the earlieranti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had spread to New York City and a variety of artistic centers in Europe and Asia.[2][3][4][5]
There is no consensus on the origin of the movement's name; a common story is that the artistRichard Huelsenbeck slid apaper knife randomly into a dictionary, where it landed on "dada", a French term for ahobby horse.[15] Others note it suggests the first words of a child, evoking a childishness and absurdity that appealed to the group. Still others speculate it might have been chosen to evoke a similar meaning (or no meaning at all) in any language, reflecting the movement'sinternationalism.[16]
The roots of Dada lie in pre-war avant-garde. The termanti-art, a precursor to Dada, was coined byMarcel Duchamp around 1913 to characterize works that challenge accepted definitions of art.[17]Cubism and the development ofcollage andabstract art would inform the movement's detachment from the constraints of reality and convention. The work of French poets, ItalianFuturists, andGerman Expressionists would influence Dada's rejection of the correlation between words and meaning.[18] Works such asUbu Roi (1896) byAlfred Jarry and the balletParade (1916–17) byErik Satie would be characterized as proto-Dadaist works.[19] The Dada movement's principles were first collected inHugo Ball'sDada Manifesto in 1916. Ball is seen as the founder of the Dada movement.[20]
This overview sectionduplicates the intended purpose of the article'slead section, which should provide an overview of the subject. Please merge it with the introduction, move its content to other sections, or retitle the section to give it a clear scope.(June 2022)
Francis Picabia,Dame! Illustration for the cover of the periodicalDadaphone, n. 7, Paris, March 1920
Dada was an informal international movement, with participants in Europe and North America. The beginnings of Dada correspond with the outbreak of World War I. For many participants, the movement was a protest against thebourgeoisnationalist andcolonialist interests, which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity—in art and more broadly in society—that corresponded to the war.[22]
Avant-garde circles outside France knew of pre-war Parisian developments. They had seen (or participated in) Cubist exhibitions held atGaleries Dalmau, Barcelona (1912), GalerieDer Sturm in Berlin (1912), theArmory Show in New York (1913),SVU Mánes in Prague (1914), severalJack of Diamonds exhibitions in Moscow and atModerne Kunstkring, Amsterdam (between 1911 and 1915).Futurism developed in response to the work of various artists. Dada subsequently combined these approaches.[18][23]
Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeoiscapitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embracechaos andirrationality.[7][8] For example,George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest "against this world of mutual destruction".[7]
According toHans Richter Dada was not art: it was "anti-art".[22] Dada represented the opposite of everything which art stood for. Where art was concerned with traditionalaesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend.
Additionally, Dada attempted to reflect onto human perception and the chaotic nature of society.Tristan Tzara proclaimed, "Everything is Dada, too. Beware of Dada. Anti-dadaism is a disease: selfkleptomania, man's normal condition, is Dada. But the real Dadas are against Dada".[24]
AsHugo Ball expressed it, "For us, art is not an end in itself ... but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in."[25]
A reviewer from theAmerican Art News stated at the time that "Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man." Art historians have described Dada as being, in large part, a "reaction to what many of these artists saw as nothing more than an insane spectacle of collective homicide".[26]
Years later, Dada artists described the movement as "a phenomenon bursting forth in the midst of the postwar economic and moral crisis, a savior, a monster, which would lay waste to everything in its path... [It was] a systematic work of destruction and demoralization... In the end it became nothing but an act of sacrilege."[26]
To quote Dona Budd'sThe Language of Art Knowledge,
Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of theFirst World War. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with theCabaret Voltaire in Zürich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yes" in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of the group when apaper knife stuck into a French–German dictionary happened to point to 'dada', a French word for 'hobbyhorse'.[8]
The creations of Duchamp, Picabia, Man Ray, and others between 1915 and 1917 eluded the term Dada at the time, and "New York Dada" came to be seen as a post facto invention of Duchamp. At the outset of the 1920s the term Dada flourished in Europe with the help of Duchamp and Picabia, who had both returned from New York. Notwithstanding, Dadaists such as Tzara and Richter claimed European precedence. Art historian David Hopkins notes:
Ironically, though, Duchamp's late activities in New York, along with the machinations of Picabia, re-cast Dada's history. Dada's European chroniclers—primarily Richter, Tzara, and Huelsenbeck—would eventually become preoccupied with establishing the pre-eminence of Zürich and Berlin at the foundations of Dada, but it proved to be Duchamp who was most strategically brilliant in manipulating the genealogy of this avant-garde formation, deftly turning New York Dada from a late-comer into an originating force.[27]
Dada emerged from a period of artistic and literary movements likeFuturism,Cubism andExpressionism; centered mainly in Italy, France and Germany respectively, in those years. However, unlike the earlier movements Dada was able to establish a broad base of support, giving rise to a movement that was international in scope. Its adherents were based in cities all over the world including New York, Zürich, Berlin, Paris and others. There were regional differences like an emphasis on literature in Zürich and political protest in Berlin.[28]
Prominent Dadaists published manifestos, but the movement was loosely organized and there was no central hierarchy. On 14 July 1916, Ball originated the seminalDada Manifesto.Tzara wrote a second Dada manifesto,[29][30] considered important Dada reading, which was published in 1918.[31] Tzara's manifesto articulated the concept of "Dadaist disgust"—the contradiction implicit in avant-garde works between the criticism and affirmation of modernist reality. In the Dadaist perspective modern art and culture are considered a type offetishization where the objects of consumption (including organized systems of thought like philosophy and morality) are chosen, much like a preference for cake or cherries, to fill a void.[32]
The shock and scandal the movement inflamed was deliberate; Dadaist magazines were banned and their exhibits closed. Some of the artists even faced imprisonment. These provocations were part of the entertainment but, over time, audiences' expectations eventually outpaced the movement's capacity to deliver. As the artists' well-known "sarcastic laugh" started to come from the audience, the provocations of Dadaists began to lose their impact. Dada was an active movement during years of political turmoil from 1916 when European countries were actively engaged in World War I, the conclusion of which, in 1918, set the stage for a new political order.[33]
There is some disagreement about where Dada originated. The movement is commonly accepted by most art historians and those who lived during this period to have identified with theCabaret Voltaire (housed inside theHolländische Meierei bar in Zürich) co-founded by poet andcabaret singerEmmy Hennings andHugo Ball.[34] Some sources propose a Romanian origin, arguing that Dada was an offshoot of a vibrant artistic tradition that transposed to Switzerland when a group of Jewishmodernist artists, including Tristan Tzara,Marcel Janco, andArthur Segal settled in Zürich. Before World War I, similar art had already existed in Bucharest and other Eastern European cities; it is likely that Dada's catalyst was the arrival in Zürich of artists like Tzara and Janco.[35]
The nameCabaret Voltaire was a reference to the French philosopherVoltaire, whose novelCandide mocked the religious and philosophicaldogmas of the day. Opening night was attended by Ball, Tzara,Jean Arp, and Janco. These artists along with others likeSophie Taeuber,Richard Huelsenbeck andHans Richter started putting on performances at the Cabaret Voltaire and using art to express their disgust with the war and the interests that inspired it.
Having left Germany and Romania duringWorld War I, the artists arrived in politically neutral Switzerland. They used abstraction to fight against the social, political, and cultural ideas of that time. They usedshock art, provocation, and "vaudevillian excess" to subvert the conventions they believed had caused the Great War.[36] The Dadaists believed those ideas to be a byproduct of bourgeois society that was so apathetic it would wage war against itself rather than challenge thestatus quo:[37]
We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. We would begin again after thetabula rasa. At the Cabaret Voltaire we began by shocking common sense, public opinion, education, institutions, museums, good taste, in short, the whole prevailing order.
Ball said that Janco's mask and costume designs, inspired by Romanian folk art, made "the horror of our time, the paralyzing background of events" visible.[36] According to Ball, performances were accompanied by a "balalaika orchestra playing delightful folk-songs." Often influenced byAfrican music, arrhythmic drumming and jazz were common at Dada gatherings.[39][40]
After the cabaret closed down, Dada activities moved on to a new gallery, andHugo Ball left for Bern. Tzara began a relentless campaign to spread Dada ideas. He bombarded French and Italian artists and writers with letters, and soon emerged as the Dada leader and master strategist. The Cabaret Voltaire re-opened, and is still in the same place at the Spiegelgasse 1 in the Niederdorf.
Zürich Dada, with Tzara at the helm, published the art and literature reviewDada beginning in July 1917, with five editions from Zürich and the final two from Paris.
After the fighting of the First World War had ended in the armistice of November 1918, most of the Zürich Dadaists returned to their home countries, and some began Dada activities in other cities. Others, such as the Swiss nativeSophie Taeuber, would remain in Zürich into the 1920s.
"Berlin was a city of tightened stomachers, of mounting, thundering hunger, where hidden rage was transformed into a boundless money lust, and men's minds were concentrating more and more on questions of naked existence... Fear was in everybody's bones" – Richard Hülsenbeck
Raoul Hausmann, who helped establish Dada in Berlin, published hismanifestoSynthethic Cino of Painting in 1918 where he attacked Expressionism and the art critics who promoted it. Dada is envisioned in contrast to art forms, such as Expressionism, that appeal to viewers' emotional states: "the exploitation of so-called echoes of the soul". In Hausmann's conception of Dada, new techniques of creating art would open doors to explore new artistic impulses. Fragmented use of real world stimuli allowed an expression of reality that was radically different from other forms of art:[42]
A child's discarded doll or a brightly colored rag are more necessary expressions than those of some ass who seeks to immortalize himself in oils in finite parlors.
— Raoul Hausmann
The groups in Germany were not as stronglyanti-art as other groups. Their activity and art were more political and social, with corrosivemanifestos and propaganda, satire, public demonstrations and overt political activities. The intensely political and war-torn environment of Berlin had a dramatic impact on the ideas of Berlin Dadaists. Conversely, New York's geographic distance from the war spawned its more theoretically driven, less political nature.[43] According toHans Richter, a Dadaist who was in Berlin yet "aloof from active participation in Berlin Dada", several distinguishing characteristics of the Dada movement there included: "its political element and its technical discoveries in painting and literature"; "inexhaustible energy"; "mental freedom which included the abolition of everything"; and "members intoxicated with their own power in a way that had no relation to the real world", who would "turn their rebelliousness even against each other".[44]
In February 1918, while the Great War was approaching its climax, Huelsenbeck gave his first Dada speech in Berlin, and he produced a Dada manifesto later in the year. Following theOctober Revolution inRussia, by then out of the war,Hannah Höch andGeorge Grosz used Dada to express communist sympathies. Grosz, together withJohn Heartfield, Höch and Hausmann developed thetechnique ofphotomontage during this period.Johannes Baader, the uninhibited Oberdada, was the "crowbar" of the Berlin movement'sdirect action according toHans Richter and is credited with creating the first giant collages, according toRaoul Hausmann.
After the war, the artists published a series of short-lived political magazines and held theFirst International Dada Fair, 'the greatest project yet conceived by the Berlin Dadaists', in the summer of 1920.[45] As well as work by the main members of Berlin Dada (Grosz,Raoul Hausmann,Hannah Höch,Johannes Baader, Huelsenbeck and Heartfield), the exhibition also included the work ofOtto Dix,Francis Picabia, Jean Arp,Max Ernst,Rudolf Schlichter,Johannes Baargeld and others.[45] In all, over 200 works were exhibited, surrounded by incendiary slogans, some of which also ended up written on the walls of the Nazi'sEntartete Kunst exhibition in 1937. Despite high ticket prices, the exhibition lost money, with only one recorded sale.[46]
InCologne, Ernst, Baargeld, and Arp launched a controversial Dada exhibition in 1920 which focused on nonsense and anti-bourgeois sentiments. Cologne's Early Spring Exhibition was set up in a pub, and required that participants walk past urinals while being read lewd poetry by a woman in acommunion dress. The police closed the exhibition on grounds of obscenity, but it was re-opened when the charges were dropped.[47]
Like Zürich, New York City was a refuge for writers and artists from the First World War. Soon after arriving from France in 1915,Marcel Duchamp andFrancis Picabia met American artistMan Ray. By 1916 the three of them became the center of radicalanti-art activities in the United States. AmericanBeatrice Wood, who had been studying in France, soon joined them, along withElsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.Arthur Cravan, fleeing conscription in France, was also in New York for a time. Much of their activity centered inAlfred Stieglitz's gallery,291, and the home ofWalter and Louise Arensberg.
The New Yorkers, though not particularly organized, called their activitiesDada, but they did not issue manifestos. They issued challenges to art and culture through publications such asThe Blind Man,Rongwrong, andNew York Dada in which they criticized the traditionalist basis formuseum art. New York Dada lacked the disillusionment of European Dada and was instead driven by a sense of irony and humor. In his bookAdventures in the arts: informal chapters on painters, vaudeville and poetsMarsden Hartley included an essay on "The Importance of Being 'Dada'".
During this time Duchamp began exhibiting "readymades" (everyday objects found or purchased and declared art) such as a bottle rack, and was active in theSociety of Independent Artists. In 1917 he submitted the now famousFountain, a urinal signed R. Mutt, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition but they rejected the piece. First an object of scorn within the arts community, theFountain has since become almost canonized by some[48] as one of the most recognizable modernist works of sculpture. Art world experts polled by the sponsors of the 2004Turner Prize, Gordon's gin, voted it "the most influential work of modern art".[48][49]
As recent scholarship documents, the work is still controversial. Duchamp indicated in a 1917 letter to his sister that a female friend was centrally involved in the conception of this work: "One of my female friends who had adopted the pseudonym Richard Mutt sent me a porcelain urinal as a sculpture."[50] The piece is in line with the scatological aesthetics of Duchamp's neighbour, theBaroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.[51] In an attempt to "pay homage to the spirit of Dada" a performance artist namedPierre Pinoncelli made a crack in a replica ofThe Fountain with a hammer in January 2006; he also urinated on it in 1993.
Picabia's travels tied New York, Zürich and Paris groups together during the Dadaist period. For seven years he also published the Dada periodical391 in Barcelona, New York City, Zürich, and Paris from 1917 through 1924.
By 1921, most of the original players moved to Paris where Dada had experienced its last major incarnation.
Man Ray, c. 1921–22,Rencontre dans la porte tournante, published on the cover ofDer Sturm, Volume 13, Number 3, 5 March 1922Man Ray, c. 1921–22,Dessin (Drawing), published on page 43 ofDer Sturm, Volume 13, Number 3, 5 March 1922
The Frenchavant-garde kept abreast of Dada activities in Zürich with regular communications fromTristan Tzara (whose pseudonym means "sad in country," a name chosen to protest the treatment of Jews in his native Romania), who exchanged letters, poems, and magazines withGuillaume Apollinaire,André Breton,Max Jacob,Clément Pansaers, and other French writers, critics and artists.
Paris had arguably been the classical music capital of the world since the advent of musical Impressionism in the late 19th century. One of its practitioners,Erik Satie, collaborated withPicasso andCocteau in a mad, scandalous ballet calledParade. First performed by theBallets Russes in 1917, it succeeded in creating a scandal but in a different way than Stravinsky'sLe Sacre du printemps had done almost five years earlier. This was a ballet that was clearly parodying itself, something traditional ballet patrons would obviously have serious issues with.
Dada in Paris surged in 1920 when many of the originators converged there. Inspired by Tzara, Paris Dada soon issued manifestos, organized demonstrations, staged performances and produced a number of journals (the final two editions ofDada,Le Cannibale, andLittérature featured Dada in several editions.)[52]
The first introduction of Dada artwork to the Parisian public was at theSalon des Indépendants in 1921.Jean Crotti exhibited works associated with Dada including a work entitled,Explicatif bearing the wordTabu. In the same year Tzara staged his Dadaist playThe Gas Heart to howls of derision from the audience. When it was re-staged in 1923 in a more professional production, the play provoked a theatre riot (initiated byAndré Breton) that heralded the split within the movement that was to produceSurrealism. Tzara's last attempt at a Dadaist drama was his "ironictragedy"Handkerchief of Clouds in 1924.
In the Netherlands, the Dada movement centered mainly aroundTheo van Doesburg, best known for establishing theDe Stijl movement and magazine of the same name. Van Doesburg mainly focused on poetry, and included poems from many well-known Dada writers inDe Stijl such asHugo Ball,Hans Arp andKurt Schwitters. Van Doesburg andThijs Rinsema [nl] (acordwainer and artist inDrachten) became friends of Schwitters, and together they organized the so-calledDutch Dada campaign in 1923, where van Doesburg promoted a leaflet about Dada (entitledWhat is Dada?), Schwitters read his poems,Vilmos Huszár demonstrated a mechanical dancing doll and Nelly van Doesburg (Theo's wife), playedavant-garde compositions on piano.
A Bonset sound-poem, "Passing troop", 1916
Van Doesburg wrote Dada poetry himself inDe Stijl, although under a pseudonym, I.K. Bonset, which was only revealed after his death in 1931. 'Together' with I.K. Bonset, he also published a short-livedDutch Dada magazine calledMécano (1922–23). Another Dutchman identified byK. Schippers in his study of the movement in the Netherlands[53] was theGroningen typographerH. N. Werkman, who was in touch with van Doesburg and Schwitters while editing his own magazine,The Next Call (1923–6). Two more artists mentioned by Schippers were German-born and eventually settled in the Netherlands. These were Otto van Rees, who had taken part in the liminal exhibitions at the Café Voltaire in Zürich, andPaul Citroen.
Though Dada itself was unknown inGeorgia until at least 1920, from 1917 until 1921 a group of poets called themselves Le Degré 41", or "Le Degré Quarante et Un" (English, "The 41st Degree") (referring both to the latitude ofTbilisi, Georgia and to the Celsius temperature of a high fever [equal to 105.8 Fahrenheit]) organized along Dadaist lines. The most important figure in this group wasIliazd (Ilia Zdanevich), whose radical typographical designs visually echo the publications of the Dadaists.[54][55]
After his flight to Paris in 1921, he collaborated with Dadaists on publications and events. For example, whenTristan Tzara was banned from holding seminars in Théâtre Michel in 1923,Iliazd booked the venue on his behalf for the performance, "The Bearded Heart Soirée", and designed the flyer.[56]
InYugoslavia, alongside the new art movementZenitism, there was significant Dada activity between 1920 and 1922, run mainly byDragan Aleksić and including work by Mihailo S. Petrov, Ljubomir Micić and Branko Ve Poljanski.[57] Aleksić used the term "Yougo-Dada" and is known to have been in contact withRaoul Hausmann,Kurt Schwitters, andTristan Tzara.[58][59]
The Dada movement in Italy, based inMantua, was met with distaste and failed to make a significant impact in the world of art. It published a magazine for a short time and held an exhibition in Rome, featuring paintings, quotations from Tristan Tzara, and original epigrams such as "True Dada is against Dada". One member of this group wasJulius Evola, who went on to become an eminent scholar ofoccultism, as well as a right-wing philosopher.[60]
Dada, an iconic character from the Ultra Series. His design draws inspiration from the art movement.
InTsuburaya Productions'sUltra Series, an alien named Dada was inspired by the Dadaism movement, with said character first appearing in episode 28 of the 1966tokusatsu series,Ultraman, its design by character artistToru Narita. Dada's design is primarily monochromatic, and features numerous sharp lines and alternating black and white stripes, in reference to the movement and, in particular, tochessboard andGo patterns. On May 19, 2016, in celebration to the 100 year anniversary of Dadaism in Tokyo, the Ultra Monster was invited to meet the Swiss Ambassador Urs Bucher.[61][62]
Butoh, the Japanese dance-form originating in 1959, can be considered to have direct connections to the spirit of the Dada movement, asTatsumi Hijikata, one of Butoh's founders, "was influenced early in his career by Dadaism".[63]
Dada in itself was relatively unknown in Russia; however, avant-garde art was widespread due to theBolsheviks' revolutionary agenda. TheNichevoki [ru], a literary group sharing Dadaist ideals[64] achieved infamy after one of its members suggested thatVladimir Mayakovsky should go to the "Pampushka" (Pameatnik Pushkina –Pushkin monument) on the "Tverbul" (Tverskoy Boulevard) to clean the shoes of anyone who desired it, after Mayakovsky declared that he was going to cleanse Russian literature.[64] For more information on Dadaism's influence uponRussian avant-garde art, see the bookRussian Dada 1914–1924.[64]
Hannah Höch of Berlin is considered to be the only female Dadaist in Berlin at the time of the movement.[66] During this time, she was in a relationship withRaoul Hausmann who also was a Dada artist. She channeled the same anti-war and anti-government (Weimar Republic) in her works but brought out a feminist lens on the themes. With her works primarily of collage and photomontage, she often used precise placement or detailed titles to callout the misogynistic ways she and other women were treated.[66]
Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, teacher, and dancer who produced various types of fine art and handicraft pieces. While married to DadaistJean Arp, Taeuber-Arp was known in the Dada community for her performative dancing. As such, she worked with choreographerRudolf von Laban and was written byTristan Tzara for her dancing skills.
London-born Mina Loy was known for being active in the literary sector of the New York Dada scene. She spent time writing poetry, creating Dada magazines, and acting and writing in plays. She contributed writing to Dada journalThe Blind Man andMarcel Duchamp'sRongwrong.
Dadaglobe solicitation form letter signed by Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Walter Serner, c. week of November 8, 1920. This example was sent from Paris to Alfred Vagts in Munich.
Dadaists used shock,nihilism, negativity,paradox,randomness,subconscious forces,anti-poetry andantinomianism to subvert established traditions in the aftermath of the Great War. Tzara's 1920 manifesto proposed cutting words from a newspaper and randomly selecting fragments to write poetry, a process in which the synchronous universe itself becomes an active agent in creating the art. A poem written using this technique would be a "fruit" of the words that were clipped from the article.[67]
In literary arts, Dadaists focused on poetry, particularly the so-called sound poetry invented byHugo Ball. Dadaist poems attacked traditional conceptions of poetry, including structure, order, as well as the interplay of sound and the meaning of language. For Dadaists, the existing system by which information is articulated robs language of its dignity. The dismantling of language and poetic conventions are Dadaist attempts to restore language to its purest and most innocent form: "With these sound poem, we wanted to dispense with a language which journalism had made desolate and impossible."[68]
Simultaneous poems (orpoèmes simultanés) were recited by a group of speakers who, collectively, produced a chaotic and confusing set of voices. These poems are considered manifestations ofmodernity including advertising, technology, and conflict. Unlike movements such as Expressionism, Dadaism did not take a negative view of modernity and the urban life. The chaotic urban and futuristic world is considered natural terrain that opens up new ideas for life and art.[69]
Dada was not confined to the visual and literary arts; its influence reached into sound and music. These movements exerted a pervasive influence on 20th-century music, especially on mid-century avant-garde composers based in New York—among them Edgard Varèse, Stefan Wolpe, John Cage, and Morton Feldman.[70]Kurt Schwitters developed what he calledsound poems, whileFrancis Picabia andGeorges Ribemont-Dessaignes composed Dada music performed at the Festival Dada in Paris on 26 May 1920.[71] Other composers such asErwin Schulhoff, Hans Heusser andAlberto Savinio all wroteDada music,[72] while members ofLes Six collaborated with members of the Dada movement and had their works performed at Dada gatherings.Erik Satie also dabbled with Dadaist ideas during his career.[71]
While broadly based, the movement was unstable. By 1924 in Paris, Dada was melding into Surrealism, and artists had gone on to other ideas and movements, includingSurrealism,social realism and other forms ofmodernism. Some theorists argue that Dada was actually the beginning ofpostmodern art.[73]
By the dawn of theSecond World War, many of the European Dadaists had emigrated to the United States. Some (Otto Freundlich,Walter Serner) died in death camps underAdolf Hitler, who actively persecuted the kind of "degenerate art" that he considered Dada to represent. The movement became less active as post-war optimism led to the development of new movements in art and literature.
At the same time that the Zürich Dadaists were making noise and spectacle at theCabaret Voltaire,Lenin was planning his revolutionary plans for Russia in a nearby apartment.Tom Stoppard used this coincidence as a premise for his playTravesties (1974), which includes Tzara, Lenin, andJames Joyce as characters. French writer Dominique Noguez imagined Lenin as a member of the Dada group in his tongue-in-cheekLénine Dada (1989).
The former building of the Cabaret Voltaire fell into disrepair until it was occupied from January to March 2002, by a group proclaiming themselvesNeo-Dadaists, led byMark Divo.[75] The group includedJan Thieler,Ingo Giezendanner, Aiana Calugar,Lennie Lee, and Dan Jones. After their eviction, the space was turned into a museum dedicated to the history of Dada. The work of Lee and Jones remained on the walls of the new museum.
Several notableretrospectives have examined the influence of Dada upon art and society. In 1967, a large Dada retrospective was held in Paris. In 2006, theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a Dada exhibition in partnership with theNational Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and theCentre Pompidou in Paris. TheLTM label has released a large number of Dada-related sound recordings, including interviews with artists such as Tzara, Picabia, Schwitters, Arp, and Huelsenbeck, and musical repertoire including Satie, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Picabia, and Nelly van Doesburg.[76]
MusicianFrank Zappa was a self-proclaimed Dadaist after learning of the movement:
In the early days, I didn't even know what to call the stuff my life was made of. You can imagine my delight when I discovered that someone in a distant land had the same idea—AND a nice, short name for it.[77]
David Bowie adapted William S. Burroughs' cut-up technique for writing lyrics and Kurt Cobain also admittedly used this method for many of his Nirvana lyrics, includingIn Bloom.[78]
Dadaism also blurred the line between literary and visual arts:
Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude topostmodernism, an influence onpop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses in the 1960s and the movement that laid the foundation forSurrealism.[79]
The Dadaists imitated the techniques developed during the cubist movement through the pasting of cut pieces of paper items, but extended their art to encompass items such as transportation tickets, maps, plastic wrappers, etc. to portray aspects of life, rather than representing objects viewed as still life. They also invented the "chancecollage" technique, involving dropping torn scraps of paper onto a larger sheet and then pasting the pieces wherever they landed.
TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. The poem will resemble you. And there you are – an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.
Raoul Hausmann,ABCD (self-portrait), a photomontage from 1923 to 1924
The Dadaists – the "monteurs" (mechanics) – used scissors and glue rather than paintbrushes and paints to express their views of modern life through images presented by the media. A variation on the collage technique, photomontage utilized actual or reproductions of real photographs printed in the press. In Cologne,Max Ernst used images from the First World War to illustrate messages of the destruction of war.[81] Although the Berlin photomontages were assembled, like engines, the (non)relationships among the disparate elements were more rhetorical than real.[82]
Theassemblages were three-dimensional variations of the collage – the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless (relative to the war) pieces of work including war objects and trash. Objects were nailed, screwed or fastened together in different fashions. Assemblages could be seen in the round or could be hung on a wall.[83]
Marcel Duchamp began to view the manufactured objects of his collection as objects of art, which he called "readymades". He would add signatures and titles to some, converting them into artwork that he called "readymade aided" or "rectified readymades". Duchamp wrote: "One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the 'readymade.' That sentence, instead of describing the object like a title, was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal. Sometimes I would add a graphic detail of presentation which in order to satisfy my craving for alliterations, would be called 'readymade aided.'"[84] One such example of Duchamp's readymade works is the urinal that was turned onto its back, signed "R. Mutt", titledFountain, and submitted to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition that year, though it was not displayed.
Many young artists in America embraced the theories and ideas espoused by Duchamp. Robert Rauschenberg in particular was very influenced by Dadaism and tended to use found objects in his collages as a means of dissolving the boundary between high and low culture.[85]
^Richard Huelsenbeck,En avant Dada: Eine Geschichte des Dadaismus, Paul Steegemann Verlag, Hannover, 1920, 1st ed. (Die Silbergäule): English translation inMotherwell 1951, p. [page needed]
^Ian Chilvers; John Glaves-Smith, eds. (2009)."Dada".A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press. pp. 171–173.ISBN9780199239658.Archived from the original on 2021-03-02. Retrieved2021-02-13.
^Dubravka Djurić, Miško Šuvaković.Impossible Histories: Historical Avant-gardes, Neo-avant-gardes, and Post-avant-gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918–1991,p. 132Archived 2020-02-26 at theWayback Machine, MIT Press, 2003.ISBN9780262042161; Jovanov Jasna, Kujundžić Dragan, "Yougo-Dada".The Eastern Orbit: Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Central Europe and Japan, vol. IV ofCrisis and the Arts: The History of Dada, general editor Stephen C. Foster,G. K. Hall & Co. 1996, 41–62ISBN9780816105885
^Loke, Margarett (November 1987)."Butoh: Dance of Darkness".The New York Times.Archived from the original on 2019-09-25. Retrieved2019-09-25.
^abcMargarita Tupitsyn; Victor Tupitsyn; Olga Burenina-Petrova; Natasha Kurchanova (2018).Russian Dada: 1914-1924(PDF). MIT Press.ISBN978-84-8026-573-7.Archived(PDF) from the original on 20 July 2020. Retrieved17 March 2020.
^Hemus, Ruth (2009).Dada's women(PDF). New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 3,11,57.ISBN978-0-300-14148-1. Retrieved22 February 2025.
^Morrison, Jeffrey; Krobb, Florian (1997).Text Into Image, Image Into Text: Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary. Atlanta: Rodopi. p. 234.ISBN9042001526.
The Dada Almanac, ed.Richard Huelsenbeck [1920], re-edited and translated by Malcolm Green et al.,Atlas Press, with texts by Hans Arp, Johannes Baader, Hugo Ball, Paul Citröen, Paul Dermée, Daimonides, Max Goth, John Heartfield, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck, Vincente Huidobro, Mario D'Arezzo, Adon Lacroix, Walter Mehring, Francis Picabia, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Alexander Sesqui, Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara.ISBN0-947757-62-7
Blago Bung, Blago Bung, Hugo Ball's Tenderenda, Richard Huelsenbeck's Fantastic Prayers, & Walter Serner's Last Loosening – three key texts of Zurich ur-Dada. Translated and introduced by Malcolm Green.Atlas Press,ISBN0-947757-86-4
Ball, Hugo.Flight Out Of Time (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996)
Bergius, HanneDada in Europa – Dokumente und Werke (co-ed. Eberhard Roters), in:Tendenzen der zwanziger Jahre. 15. Europäische Kunstausstellung, Catalogue, Vol.III, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1977.ISBN978-3-496-01000-5
Bergius, HanneDas Lachen Dadas. Die Berliner Dadaisten und ihre Aktionen. Gießen: Anabas-Verlag 1989.ISBN978-3-870-38141-7
Bergius, HanneDada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923. Artistry of Polarities. Montages – Metamechanics – Manifestations. Translated by Brigitte Pichon. Vol. V. of the ten editions ofCrisis and the Arts: the History of Dada, ed. by Stephen Foster, New Haven, Connecticut, Thomson/Gale 2003.ISBN978-0-816173-55-6.
Jones, Dafydd W.Dada 1916 In Theory: Practices of Critical Resistance (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014).ISBN978-1-781-380-208
Biro, M.The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.ISBN0-8166-3620-6
Dachy, Marc. Journal du mouvement Dada 1915–1923, Genève, Albert Skira, 1989 (Grand Prix du Livre d'Art, 1990)
1971:DADA 'Archives du XXe siècle' on YouTube, Une émission produite par Jean José Marchand, réalisée par Philippe Collin et Hubert Knapp, Ce documentaire a été diffusé pour la première fois sur la RTF le 28.03.1971, 267 min.
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