Existentialism and its influences on modern art DaDaism Existentialism and its influences on modern art

DaDA : The Art Movement Artistic and literary movement that began in France and Germany in 1914 A definition: Contributors sought to ridicule the culture of their time through deliberately absurd performances, poetry, and visual art. Dadaists embraced the extraordinary, the irrational, and the contradictory Reaction to the unprecedented brutality of WWI and the onset of WWII

Artists’ works were motivated by the belief that European values of nationalism, militarism, and rational thought were responsible for the horrors of the war Many artists created works that were playful drawings, paintings, and sculptures that depicted strange and mysterious machinery- a jab at new technology Dada became a political movement in protest of war. They published magazines, poetry, and manifestos Many defined Dadaism as “nihilistic”- rejecting all moral values But Dadaists demanded that Dada was “an affirmation of life in the face of death!”

Dada=Rocking Horse (French, child’s word for a horse) Tristan Tzara, French poet and author of the “Dada Manifesto” (1918) proclaimed: “DADA MEANS NOTHING”

DaDa Art “Hydrometric demonstration of how to kill by temperature” Max Ernst 1920

‘Tatlin at Home’ Raoul Hausmann 1920

‘Switzerland, Birth-Place of Dada’ Or ‘Physiomythological Flood Picture’ Max Ernst and Hans Arp 1928

‘Dadaville’ Max Ernst 1923-24

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