1. (c c. 1923)

2. Dada:
it has been said that a French German Dictionary was opened at random & the word was dada read out
a child’s rocking horse?
a name a child first utters?
It is an attack on earlier movements that have names that are descriptive of their activities.

3. Context:
WW1 - Mass produced, industrialized death (war in the trenches)
Artists came to hate authority & tradition & many fled to Switzerland (Zurich) to escape the war
Hugo Ball & girlfriend opened (Cabaret Voltaire) - provided a venue for artists to exchange ideas
Dada occurred in Zurich, Berlin (associated with German Expressionism), Hanover (Schwitters), New York.
Some Artists associated with Dada =Arp, Duchamp, Scwitters, Ernst.

4. e.g. of War Poetry: Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently
As though they were stretched outside
The oval or villa park
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustache archaic faces
grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark….
Never such innocence,
never before or since,
AS changed itself to past
Without a word : the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
the thousands of marriages
lasting a little while longer;
Never such innocence again.

5. War Propaganda

6. Soldiers in the trenches
during WW1

7. A doctor checking feet for trench foot

8. Soldiers wearing gas masks during WW1

9. A graveyard in France after WW1

10. Influences: Collage from Cubism
Bruitism (noise music), aggression & response to war like Futurism
Spontaneous techniques from Kandinsky
wanted to imitate the innocence & honest approach to art that primitive people had

11. Futurism:
Riot in The Gallery -
Boccioni

12. Futurism:

13. Janco
Mask

14. Characteristics
anti-tradition, anti -art , anti sense, nihilistic - stressed absurdity - Dada was an attitude rather than a style ( no common style & the exhibitions were known for incoherence)
The dada revolt was ironic - to destroy society meant their own destruction - (dada existed to destroy itself)
opposed naturalism - challenged traditional values & definitions of art - questioned the role & function of art

15. Marcel Duchamp, c. 1935

16. Duchamp with star & stripe

17. Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase
1912

18. Duchamp :
L. H. O. O. Q., 1919

19. Duchamp
The bride stripped bare by her bachelors , even (Large Glass)

20. Duchamp
The bride stripped bare by her bachelors , even (Large Glass)

21. Duchamp: The Chocolate Grinder

22. Detail of Large glass with dust settled on the surface

23. Duchamp
Fountain
1917

24. Duchamp
Fountain
1917

25. Duchamp:
Bottle Rack, 1917

26. Duchamp:
Bicycle Wheel on a stool, 1914

27. Jean Arp working on a collage in his studio at Meudon, 1960

28. ARP:
Collage with squares arranged according to the laws of chance,

29. Arp:
Fleur Marteau, 1916

30. Jean Arp
Upside - Down Blue Shoe with Two Heels, 1925

31. Arp:
Mountain Table Anchors Navel, 1925

32. Max Ernst

33. Ernst: In Here Everything is still floating, 1920

34. Ernst:
The Elephant of the Celebes, 1921

35. Kurt Schwitters
c. 1940

36. Schwitters
Merz Collage

37. Schwitters
Opened by Customs,