Dadaism: What It Is And What Are Its Characteristics
What is Dadaism? How can such provocative elements as Marcel Duchamp’s urinal and Mona Lisa with mustaches be in a museum? What did the Dada movement intend with such “irreverence”? Is it a lack of respect for art, is it art, or is it nothing?
Dadaism is one of the most original movements in history and also one of the most enigmatic, precisely because of the extremely violent clarity and forcefulness with which it is expressed. In this article we will try to briefly unravel the mysteries of this demand, which was born in a cafe in Zurich when the rest of Europe was immersed in the desolation of the First World War.
In 1916, a group of young intellectuals met regularly at the Cabaret Voltaire, a cafe in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. The group is heterogeneous, but they all have one characteristic in common: They flee the war and the horror that has taken over Europe
Indeed, since 1914 the First World War has devastated the European continent. The brilliant years before the conflict, commonly called the Belle Époque, have evaporated. A splendor that, on the other hand, was nothing more than a mirage, since in the last decades of the 19th century the rearmament of the European powers was an open secret.
This pre-war climate, which predicts little less than a collective shipwreck, saddens the generation born around the year 1890. In Paris, the Fauves began to pave the way for what would become, a few years later, the avant-garde artistic movements that violently oppose the order and the prevailing society.
This youth protest is the result of deep anguish, of the awareness that we are experiencing the end of a world and of the restlessness of those who do not know what will come next. In general, the avant-garde splits into two forms of protest: the first means a naive and almost childish evasion, a distancing from that hostile world, through a naive and romantic art; The second is a violent and very demanding protest, which directly attacks the foundations of the society of the time
It is in this second group where we must place the Dadaists. Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) was a Romanian student who was in Zurich studying philosophy when he was surprised by the war in his homeland; Hans Arp, for his part, was in town to visit his mother. On the other hand, we also find army deserters who, horrified by the blood, death and desolation of combat, take refuge in Switzerland. This is the case of Hugo Ball, former German army soldier.
We must imagine this group of young people sitting at the tables of the Cabaret Voltaire, smoking, perhaps absently observing passers-by, chatting in a low voice, when not immersed in an anguishing and oppressive silence. Europe is sinking. The whole world is sinking. It is 1916, and the Great War seems to have no end.
The Dada movement, which arose from the minds and hearts of these artists disillusioned with society and human beings, took their protest to the extreme. And we are not referring to violent actions. Absolutely.
Quite the contrary, The Dadaists took nihilism, that is, absolute negation, to its ultimate consequences They even deny art, a concept that, in other avant-garde movements, such as German Expressionism (also very critical of the war situation), still prevailed. As Mario de Micheli states in his book The artistic avant-garde of the 20th century“Dadaism is anti-artistic, anti-literary and anti-poetic.”
It is still curious and, in a certain way, funny, that Dadaism, the most transgressive and vindictive movement in the history of art, which considered itself an “anti-art”, is currently included in art books as a movement more. What would Tristan Tzara and his companions have thought of him? We do not know. Because, underneath all that strong denialist attitude, there was still a disillusioned artistic sensibility. Let us remember that all members of the Dada movement were intellectuals, writers and artists. It would be for a reason.
“Dada”: the name that means nothing
The artist Hans Arp (1886-1966), one of the founders of the Dada movement, stated in a magazine in 1921 that The name “Dada” came to them one day at Café Terasse in Zurich The way in which he narrates it, artificial and very “Dadaist”, makes us question the veracity of the statement (after all, Dadaism was that, mockery and sarcasm): “I declare that Tristan Tzara found the word” Dada” on February 8, 1916 at six in the afternoon. I was present with my twelve children when Tzara uttered this word for the first time (…) it happened in the Café Terasse in Zurich, while he was bringing a bun to my left nostril… “
His movement companions, the writer George Ribemont-Dessaignes (1884–1974) and Tristan Tzara himself, followed suit, and gave the public different versions. The first claims that the word was discovered by chance, when a “letter opener accidentally slipped between the pages of the dictionary.” Tzara, for his part, says that he found the word “Dada” by chance among the pages of a Larousse.
What is the truth? Well, as they say colloquially, who knows. With the Dadaists everything was a circus ring, full of magic acts, acrobatics and visual tricks. This is what, at its core, the Dada movement intended: confuse the viewer, make him frown, awaken anger in his heart, the rage of impotence
In reality, “Dada” means nothing. Precisely for this reason it is the perfect name for the group; a nomenclature that is empty, that resonates due to its hollowness, that is only a symbol of rebellion and denial of all the values of the accepted culture.
Variants of the expression of Dadaism in different arts
How do you make “art” when you absolutely deny it? What, then, were the creative procedures of this group that did not believe in artistic creation? Let’s briefly examine how the Dadaists expressed their convictions.
1. Dadaist “poetry”
Dadaists do not create, but rather they manufacture Thus, in this very simple way, they bring down the glorious Art (with a capital letter) from the pedestals and lower it to the terrain of the mechanical, of the prosaic. In its Manifesto on weak love and bitter love (1921), Tristan Tzara details the steps to making a “poem.”
Among them, we find newspaper clippings taken out at random from a bag, and later placed on a sheet. It is, of course, what de Micheli called “anti-literature”; There is no creative process, since everything is left to the whim of chance.
What remains curious, however, is the beautiful title with which Tzara titled this manifesto, a title full of poetry that, despite containing an obvious sarcastic charge, denotes, once again, that the Dadaists were, deep down, artists. Even if they wanted to pretend otherwise.
2. Dadaist “sculpture”
If we have in mind Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal (1887-1968), we already have a clear image of what the Dadaists presented as sculpture. The “work”, ironically titled The fountain, was simply purchased by Duchamp (how else was he going to make a urinal without being a plumber?) and sent to the Annual Association of Independent Artists. The “work” was rejected, of course, but this was the artist’s intention. As a good Dadaist, Duchamp did not believe in artistic institutions or anything similar, not even in “independent” ones.
Against all odds, The Fountain is currently on display in a museum, The Tate Modern in London. Surely, Duchamp would have laughed, a lot, at this.
3. Dadaist “painting”
The famous Gioconda of da Vinci, an undeniable icon of universal art, dressed with shiny black mustaches. This is how the well-known Marcel Duchamp presented it; in 1919 He made a reproduction of the Monna Lisa and added a mustache and the letters LHOOQ If we read these letters quickly in French, we get the phrase “elle a chaud au cul”, that is, “she has a hot ass”. The provocation is more than evident.
With this work, Duchamp takes Dadaism to its maximum expression, since, first of all, he ridicules a consecrated work, thus demonstrating that no art is “sacred” ; Secondly, it once again lowers artistic creation from its pedestals, since it appropriates someone else’s work and modifies it as it pleases. For this reason, the Dadaists have been considered the precursors of the new media art or new media art, since they were among the first to exercise the appropriation of works of art for a new use, in addition to profusely using techniques such as collage and photomontage.
