DADA Movement

Dadaism was an art movement created in the early 20th century in Zurich, Switzerland (1915). This new art movement spread it influence in the west including Germany and the USA. This art movement was sparked after the First World War and was born from the negative reaction towards the horror of war. The movement aim was to protest against the bourgeois capitalist ideology society lead people to war.

The movement was made up of different individuals, with different disciplines, visual artists, literature, poets, art manifestos, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated on rejecting of the traditional social ideology standards in art through anti-art cultural works.

Dada considered itself not art, but "anti-art." Everything for which art stood, Dada represented the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend.

The main founders of the dada movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Johannes Baader, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Richard Huelsenbeck, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Beatrice Wood, Kurt Schwitters, and Hans Richter, among others. 

Individuals such as Tristan Tzara in 1918 created the DADA manifesto which served as the guideline and intents of the Dadaist.

”Dada does not mean anything.. We read
in the papers that the Negroes of the
Kroo race call the tail of the sacred cow:
dada. A cube, and a mother, in certain
regions of Italy, are called: Dada.
The word for a hobby-horse, a children's
nurse, a double affirmative in Russian
and Rumanian, is also: Dada."

- Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto

New Art techniques were emerging and started being used by the Dadaist. This made use of unconventional mediums and also embraced new technologies which emerged in the 20th century.

These include collages, photomontage, ready mades, and assemblage which wer utilised by different artist in the movement.

Example of ready made art by Marcel Duchamp

Fountain 1917

Example of photo montage and collage
Raoul Hausmann ABCD (Self-portrait)
 A photomontage from 1923-24

Example of collage work
Hanah Hoch Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through
the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in German
1918

                 

                                                      

Example of Assemblage'Mechanical Head'Raoul Hausmann
1920

                                        

Example of photo montage on book cover'John Heartfield'

                

Dadaism made a large impact on the avante garde art movements and modernist art and was the starting point for other movments which came afterwords. Dada was the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism and paved the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, and a prelude to postmodernism. Later it would strongly influence influence pop art in the USA in the 50’s

References

http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/149499/Dada

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm

(all accessed 23/01/2014 @ 13:00)

BOOK

GRAPICH DISGN REFERENCED

A visual guide to the language, application and history of graphic design 

Bryony Gomez-Palacio

and

Armin Vit

Published 2012

2009 by Rockport publishers

US

2Russian Constructivism