Zurich%20Dada

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Zurich Dada

• 1916 - 1918

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Why Dada?

• to counter the logic that was used to justify the
  killing and mutilation of millions
• to show disgust with bourgeois values
• to create a better life after WWI through the
  irrational

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Dada What Is It?

• international movement in art and literature that
  used ridicule and nonsense to reflect what was
  considered to be the meaninglessness of the
  modern world
• anti-war, anti-art, and anti-bourgeois movement
• anarchistic movement that challenged traditional
  perceptions of art as well as provoked a
  reexamination of social and moral values

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Founding of the Movement

• originated in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916
• Zurich was neutral territory, the place where
  many artists went to find refuge from World War
  I
• Lenin, James Joyce, and Carl Jung were also
  in residence here
• founded by exiles
• other Dada cells located in Paris, Barcelona and
  New York

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Aims

• originally, to express anger over the war
• later, to attack the art establishment which was
  aligned with middle class society
• to destroy those systems based on reason and
  logic and replace them with ones based on
  anarchy, the primitive, and the irrational

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Anti-art Credo

• used shock, provocation, and irrationality as a
  weapon against the Establishment
• asked the question what kind of culture would
  condone the industrialized murder of World War I?
• made fun of the "seriousness" and sanctity of
  traditional art
• believed that traditional art had to be purged
  and that this new movement was going to start
  culture from scratch
• created in a "child-like" manner
• believed that the value of art was located more
  in the act of making it than in the work produced

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Characteristics of Dada Art

• elementary
• anonymous and collective
• spontaneous, random, and provocative
• toy-like
• primitive
• organic and biomorphic

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Mythic Origins of the Word Dada

• first word a baby utters?
• "yes, yes" in Russian?
• "hobby-horse" in Rumanian?
• word found at random in the dictionary?

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Founders of the Cabaret Voltaire
In 1915, Hugo Ball (writer and theatre
director) and his female partner Emmy Hennings
(dancer and chanteuse) left Munich and moved to
Zurich.
I didn't love the death-hussars,And not the
howitzers with girls' names,And at the end when
the great days came,I went discreetly away.  
Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, Zurich (1918).
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The Cabaret Voltaire

• founded on February 1, 1916, as an international
  literary cabaret
• located in a slightly disreputable neighborhood
  in Zurich, Switzerland, on the Speigelgasse
• venue for selling beer, sausage, and rolls
• Emmy Hennings sang songs while Hugo Ball played
  the piano others recited non-sensical poetry
  and improvised

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Hugo Ball in cubist costume reciting his poem
Caravan at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, 1916.
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Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Hans Richter in
Zurich (1918).
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Fancy-dress costumes on a poem by Hugo Ball
(1918).
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Marcel Janco. Cabaret Voltaire (1916). Total
pandemonium. Tzara is wiggling his behind
like the belly of an Oriental dancer. Janco is
playing an invisible violin and bowing and
scraping. Madame Hennings, with a Madonna face,
is doing the splits. Huelsenbeck is banging away
nonstop on the great drum, with Ball
accompanying him on the piano, pale as a chalky
ghost." (Hans Arp, 1916)
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Cover of Cabaret Voltaire, a Dada literary
magazine (15 May 1916)
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Technique Automatism

• The starting point of creation is the notion of
  vitality, the movement of the creative hand.
• There are no preconceived subjects.
• But as outlines contoured the surface, they
  provoked associations to plant, animal, and human
  life.
• The important thing is ambiguityto suggest
  rather than to define forms.

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Importance of Automatism

• helped to overcome their own painting culture
• challenged the inherited assumptions of style and
  habits of the hand
• suggested the possibility of evoking experience
  located in the unconscious

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Hans (Jean) Arp. Automatic Drawing (1916).
Brush and ink on gray paper.
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The Automatic Process

• First, pencil outlines are drawn.
• Second, contours are filled in with black ink.
• Third, changing and adjusting these shapes.
• Fourth, eliminating shapes as the drawing was
  near completion.

Hans (Jean) Arp. Automatic Drawing (1916).
Brush and ink on gray paper.
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Hans Arp. Geometric Collage (1916). Collage of
pasted papers.
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Hans Arp. Collage with Squares Arranged
According to the Laws of Chance (1917). Collage
of torn-and-pasted paper on blue-gray paper
colored papers.
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Hans Arp. Entombment of The Birds and
Butterflies (Portrait of Tristan Tzara), 1916-17.
Painted wood relief.
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Hans Arp. Enak's Tears (Terrestrial Forms), 1917.
Painted wood.
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Hans Arp. Birds in an Aquarium (c.
1920).Painted wood relief.
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Hans Arp. Mustache Hat from 7 Arpaden
(1923). Lithograph published in a portfolio.
arpaden is a made up word meaning Arp things
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Hans Arp. The Navel Bottle from 7 Arpaden
(1923). Lithograph in a print portfolio.
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Hans Arp. Portfolio Cover from 7 Arpaden (1923).
Letterpress with collage addition.
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Sophie Taeuber and Hans Arp in their Zurich
studio, with her puppets on the wall (1918).
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Marionettes by Sophie Tauber-Arp
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Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The Army (1917). Wood
painted in oil.
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Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Dada Head (Portrait of Hans
Arp), 1918. Wood.
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Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Dada Head (1920). Painted
wood with glass beads on wire.
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Hans Arp. Wool Rug (executed by
Sophie Taueber-Arp), 1918.
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Marcel Janco. Mask (1919). Cardboard, horsehair,
wire, and cloth.
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Marcel Janco. Study for Brilliant Empire
Architecture (1918). Painted plaster relief.
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Hans Richter. Macabre Portrait (1917). Oil on
canvas.
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Mary Wigman dancing (1919).
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Tristan Tzara. Poster announcing Dada Happening.