The First World War may have excited the Futurist movement; however, a new art movement was gathering stride in Paris, Barcelona, Cologne, New York, Berlin and Zurich -- the Dada movement (1916-1923). This international artistic and literary cult reflected a widespread nihilistic protest against all aspects of Western Culture mainly due to a direct result of revulsion and rebellion against the horrors of war.
These artists and writers believed that a society that could produce WWI was an evil society whose philosophy and culture should be totally destroyed because it was socially and morally bankrupt.
Dada was more than an art form or culture; it was a state of mind.
DADA: This word was seized upon by the Dadaists at the Cabaret Cafe in 1916 when a paper knife was found inserted into a dictionary pointing to the term "dada." This infant language for "hobbyhorse" was found appropriate for the group's anti-aesthetic creations and protest activities.
The Dada movement tried to express the negation of all current aesthetic and social values, and frequently used deliberately incomprehensible artistic and literary methods. Their works were designed to shock or bewilder with the aim of startling the public into reconsidering accepted aesthetic values. They found humourous ways of expressing this dark humour, by using different elements to create art. Dadaists used novel materials, including trash from the street, (ready-mades), and a new form of allowing chance to determine the elements of their works. Although Dadaist employed revolutionary techniques, their revolt against standards stemmed from the romantic tradition of essential goodness of humanity when uncorrupted by society. That is why they may have succeeded in creating many scandals but they did make people look at images in a new light. Dada works forced the observer to question accepted realities and acknowledge the role of chance and imagination.
As the short lived Dadaist movement declined in the 1920's, most of the practitioners moved into Surrealism where they incorporated the "shocking and bewildering" aspects of Dadaism with more of the inner sub-conscious thought that Surrealism provided. However, in the mid 1950's, a Dadaism revival occurred in New York, indicating that it was and still is a very prominent and important artistic movement in the world of arts.
Key Terms
Surrealism: (which evolved from Dadaism) provided the "shocking and bewildering" aspects of Dadaism with more of the inner sub-conscious
Ready-mades: an artwork made up of ordinary objects.
All information on this page and site is copyright of Allon Schemool (2001).
