Dadaism was born from a group of original avant-garde painters, poets and filmmakers that traveled to neutral Switzerland before and throughout World War I. Dadaists believed that the root cause of the war was the practice and policy of controlling weaker people and areas through extended power. With such strong beliefs, we consider Dadaists as siding with the radical left wing. With that being said, Dadaists mainly focused on anti-war and anti-bourgeois messages as the main content of their movement. The other most notable attributes of Dadaism are the rejection of logic, prizing nonsense, rationality and celebrating the avant-garde. ith the state of Modern society in Europe and decided to use art to protest their concerns. They created ‘non-art’ as a way of showing their belief that art had no meaning in society anyways. Most of the art created in this movement was meant to be obscene humor and using everyday objects. Origin of the Word “DADA”
The mimic of an infant’s first sounds, representing multicultural nonsense
“Da, da” means “Yes, yes” in Romanian and was commonly used by Romanian artists, Tristan Tzara and Marcel Jancos
A group of artists assembled in Zurich in 1916, wanting a name for their new movement, chose it at random by stabbing a French-German dictionary with a paper knife, “dada” in French is a word for “hobby horse.”With the opposition to the war, the refugees traveling to Switzerland stumbled upon the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich 1916. This event, created by Hugo Ball and Emmy Hemmings, was the mix between a nightclub and art museum, where artists could come and display their work with music, poetry and other side shows in the background. The Cabaret Voltaire was the essential meeting place for the more radical of the avant-garde style. Some of the first four contributors to the event were Jean Arp, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck. All of them got more and more worked up as the night went on due to the carnage of WWI and proceeded to protest the government for failing society and corrupting the system. Many of the works within the Cabaret were brutal and chaotic, leading even to attacks of the artists on the stage. With such agreement and unity, the spiritual call of Dada was proclaimed and would then last many years through the 19th and 20th centuries. The Cabaret Voltaire was the official creation of the Dada movement, but they attracted many different styles of artists throughout their history because of the fact that they did not have a unifying pattern of style, instead keeping it open.Post-war Berlin did adapt Dadaism, but it became more about politics than anti-art. Berlin was struggling from the after affects of the war, leaving the population almost in an economic collapse. With most of society fighting to survive, the government was also in battle, the left wing fighting the right for control. It is thought that the anti-war Dadaism did not hit Germany as hard due to Berlin’s distance from the front lines. In contrast, New York’s geographical distance spawned a less political cultured Dadaism. Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield and George Grosz were the main artists that developed the political stance of Dada in Berlin. They mainly used collages of photographs and texts to introduce authority in the art and connecting their opinions to real world concepts. Grosz moved away from the protest side of Dada towards a more violent disgust with the cruelty of the Bourgeoisie. Much of his work exposed dishonesty in politicians, press, the army and the ruling classes. Within his paintings and drawings, he essentially mirrored the enemies in order to reflect upon their wrong doings. Duchamp’s background was combined between Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, leaving him extremely talented in a variety of art styles. Most of his works consisted of ‘ready-made’ objects, such as mass produced and commercially available objects, that were recreated into art. Duchamp’s greatest accomplishment in his artist years was the concept of transitioning the focus of art away from physical and into mental.
“An ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” -Marcel Duchamp
Being a pioneer of the Dada movement, Duchamp found success as a painter in post WWI. His sense of humor, use of puns and overall comical personality fit him in perfectly to become a historical influential Dadaist. In his work, he joined together all aspects of the Dada ideals, including revolt, with an emphasis on equality and non-prejudice. New York was also a popular spot for refugees before and during WWI. Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and American artist Man Ray soon became the center of the radical anti-art movement in the United States. The New Yorkers did not necessarily consider themselves Dadaist, but they did challenge art and culture in a few different ways. One of the ways New York challenged museum art was through The Blind Man publication. New York’s Dada contrasted with European Dada in that it was more ironic and humour, rather than frustration.