Dada 1915

Dada


What is art?


Art is when viewers do not get the same interpretation of the same artwork.
Dada began in Zurich, Switzerland during the World War 1. It involved visual artists, literature, poetry, art manifesto, art theory, theatre and graphic design.

Dada artists concentrated on their anti-war politics through the rejection of everything. From rejecting everything Dada soon was known as an anti-art movement. It rose because of the mood of disillusionment that was caused by WW1. Artists reacted to the mood of disillusionment caused by WW1 as an irony, cynicism and the rejection of moral principle.

The sense of disillusionment, the fat of challenging ones believe structure is what made the Dada movement. Dada was so weird to the point where it questioned its surrounding.


-Dada was mainly literary because many members were poets and writers.  
-The real meaning of Dada meant Hobby Horse.
-It rejected rational thinking. 
Dada ignored aesthetics, it was made to offend people.
First Dada manifesto by Tristan Tzara, 1918


Figure 1: Tzara, T, First Dada Manifesto, 1918, Print
https://za.pinterest.com/pin/134474738850833285/

Manifestos were created to make people believe in the movement, better yet they convinced people to believe in the movement.
Dada questioned the intelligence of the age and the meaning of art, it denounced sentimental psychological talk and morality, basically things that society valued. They criticised the believe structure.
Poems also rejected some form of using language. Authors such as Hugo Ball created abstract poems.


Figure 2: Ball,H, Unknown, 1920, Poetry
http://www.widewalls.ch/dadaist-artists-dada/hugo-ball/ 

However Tristan Tzara’s poems where created by choosing words, not writing them. Poems rejected the norms of what language is, language creates reality, and Dada questions reality.
Posters had a rational organisation of text.

Marcel Duchamp


Duchamp insisted that art should be conceptual. He studied Fauvism, Cubism and impressionism and was captivated by new approaches to colour and structure. He thought of a way to interpret art. 
Duchamp thought that art was is created between the creator and viewer. The viewer somehow contributed to making the art piece. 
A performativity act such as stylistic category “readymade”. Massed produced products and putting them in a gallery and calling it art was one way of describing Dada. Duchamp thus reduced the creative act to that of choosing. This unsettles the traditional reputation of the artwork as something associated with skill, taste, craftsmanship. For example Marcel Duchamp’s work, Fountain, 1917, what he wanted to do is create what the viewer interpreted, the play between the artist, artwork and viewer. Another example of his work is L,H,O,O,Q, 1919, Image of Mona Lisa with a moustache, that was a readymade image.

Marcel’s work


  • Involves the artists, artwork and viewers
  • The act of looking becomes part of the artwork
  • The at of viewing, artwork is created when viewed
  • Installation artwork, either then using a canvas.


Kurt Schwitters- German artist


Schwitters has done installation art. He was famous for his collages, known as Merz Pictures.
In 1918 art was made to change dramatically as a direct consequence of Germany economic. Schwitters asked to join the Dada movement however he got rejected at first because of his work as expressionistic art of being a romantic.  He had a view of things having the quality of being beautiful.  Most of his works attempted to make coherent aesthetic sense of the world around him.

He made collages that looked like ciaos. He made abstract collages, creating an intricate and complex work that corporates many different materials and pieces. His designs and its adornment of any sense of illusionistic hierarchy. 
He essentially takes a standard educational tool and destroys its utility with blatantly incorrect language.  Like Dada he manipulated words and images in order to highlight the irrationality and arbitrariness of conventional systems. 

Dada changed the perception of art


Not only did the artist engage with the artwork, but the viewer engaged with the artwork.

Hannah Hoch


Hoch is the originator of photomontage (photo collage).
She collaged diverse photographic elements and separated images that have meaning of their own. She helped expand the pioneering arts to use photomontage. Her art was made to create some sort of art collage. 

Dada back then




Figure 3: Hoch, H, Self Portrait, 1889-1978, Collage.
https://za.pinterest.com/pin/85357355408621976/

In the image above Hoch, created an image by placing different elements that have their own meaning together and created an image that meant something completely different as a whole. She rejected the use of how the human body structure is, she replaced some elements of the human body and added elements that are off the category. This image, collaborates a lot of elements that are different and when put together creates something different and new.

She rejected the use of proportion and how reality sees a human figure. 

Dada New-be




Figure 4:  Village,J,Beethoven, 2000, Collage
https://za.pinterest.com/pin/489977634434510767/

Village created this image as a reference from the Dada movement. He created this collage by using different elements or pictures and placed them next to each other to create an artwork that was once created by a woman named Hannah Hoch. There are a few words that are included in the image however most pictures are clashed. In the image, some of the pictures and words are clashed and convey some sort of texture, and colour contrast.

These collages convey a feeling of rejecting the use of placement of certain images, and balance, everything seems to be mixed up into one bundle of a collage, which I find interesting. These types of collages were made to make us give our own personal response about them, but Dada did not care about making people feel a certain way. It rejected all feelings and reality, hence their art just does not make sense.

Links for pictures


https://za.pinterest.com/pin/134474738850833285/

http://www.widewalls.ch/dadaist-artists-dada/hugo-ball/ 

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/85357355408621976/

 https://za.pinterest.com/pin/489977634434510767/

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