DADA Nihilist Anti Art: Chaos, Spontaneity, Chance!

This article does not attempt to analyse specific artefacts or techniques employed by the Dadaists – undoubtedly this is interesting, but can be further examined by anyone interested at a library. The relevance of Dada lies in the motivation of its exponents, the passion of these people and the lesson of its ultimate destruction by Surrealism and a conservative, apathetic society.

Dada followed the Futurist movement of the early 1900s which, although an art movement, had extended it range of activities from paintings to architecture, clothes politics.

During World War One Switzerland remained neutral and thus was a haven for deserters, pacifists, radicals and artists. Many of these people gathered around the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, which had been established by Hugo Ball on 1^st February 1916. The Cabaret Voltaire mounted nightly orgies of singing, poetry and dancing at a time when the rest of Europe was being ravaged by war.

The movement aimed, through the destruction of art, to assault the entire bourgeois society that had caused the horrific war. Dadaists saw art as the ultimate symbol of bourgeois culture and so attacked it relentlessly – but they also aimed to redefine art as a total experience of being in the world.

The magazine “Dada” came out, produced by several of those attending the Cabaret Voltaire – Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Andre Breton, Hans Arp et al. the Dadaists aimed for complete liberation from order itself, it was against all programmes. The Dada manifesto of 1916 (there were many) declared: “Dada means nothing … Thought is produced in the mouth”.

Dada sought to break the chains that prevented creativity or a recognition of freedom in a confused, contradictory and absurd modern world.

Dadaists believed that chance, irrationality and disorder could reveal possibilities of a new world. Humour was a vital part of the movement, mocking everything (including themselves) and taking laughter seriously – this is where the anarchist movement has often failed.

To outrage public opinion was a basic principle of Dada.

By 1918 a more nihilist ant-art developed with the arrival in Zurich of other radicals, such as Francis Picabia and Dr. Walter Serner. Picabia was later to join Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray as part of the New York Dada scene.

Berlin Dada was established by Richard Huelsenbeck and Raoul Hausman around the time of the 1918 uprisings, where they formed the Dadaist Revolutionary Central Council, involving people like Franz Jung, John and Weiland Heartfield, Hans Richter and George Grosz. A general aim of this group was to put people in a position to exploit their mental and physical energies, “To hell with art if it gets in the way”. In practice, the battle against art was a battle against the social conditions prevailing in Germany at that time (which is what art should be about).

In Cologne, Max Ernst and Johannes Baargeld established the Dada Conspiracy of the Rhineland. Photomontage was developed using cut up photographs with added drawings, pasted in bits of newspaper etc. to confront a crazy world with its own image (punk really was old hat, you see!). Collage had been done before, but the addition of photographs was new and important as photography was seen as an alienating image creator.

Phonetic poetry also developed under Dada. Poetry readings took on theatrical proportions, with accompanying sounds and drama. In Hanover, Kurt Schwitters became a Dadaist poet, painter and organiser – usually all at the same time, with no respect for anyone.

In Paris, the French were wary of Dada and its eccentricities. Paris Dada was largely limited to writers. The Paris audiences found it difficult to swallow the ideas of Napoleon, Marx, Kant, Cezanne and Lenin all at once, and so had a tendency to riot at Dada soirees, which, of course, was what was wanted by the Dadaists.

However, by 1921 the time for anarchy was over for Breton, on whom none of the anti-authoritarianism and certainly none of the humour, of Dada had rubbed off. The buffoonery of the Dadaists dissolved into farce, opening divisions. More importantly, the shock element was fading.

Thus Sur-realism developed, initially as a weapon to destroy Dada, which it duly did, and is much better known today … but that’s the nature of history! Andre Breton ruled the Surrealists with an iron fist and codified the Dada revolt into a strict intellectual discipline which embodied dream and chance. The spirit and influence of Dada, I believe, have transcended and had wider ranging implications than the Stalinist Surrealism – which is now thought of as an artistic style rather than a revolutionary movement. The only shock came from Salvador Dali who soon turned his back on the Surrealist circle to do his own thing and became an anarchist who loved the monarchy and his country (True Dada!).

Stewart Home said of Surrealism, “Under this title it became the most degenerate expression of the Utopian tradition during the pre-war years. Whereas Berlin Dada rejected both art and work, the Surrealists embraced painting, occultism, Freudianism and numerous other bourgeois mystifications.”

DADA   dada   DAda   daDA   DaDa   dAdA   DaDa   dADA   DaDA   DADa

(AntiClockWise Issue 3)