Dadaism : Blog 4

Dadaism

One of the most effective Modern movements is Dadaism. Dada is a random word and most probably it does not have any meaning. This is what Dada was all about, non-sense designs. They wanted to destroy art to rebel against the system, but at the same time they were creating a new form of art.

This post World War 1 movement was a cultural movement in all visual arts and graphic design. It was spread around several countries like New York, France and Berlin. The founder of this movement is Hugo Ball who created the Dada Manifesto in 1916. With the use of the Manifesto, Dada made a political statement on the terrible state of society at the time. Hugo Ball was the leading figure of the movement in Zurich and he was involved in naming the group as well, by choosing a random word.

"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

Other artist like Tristan Tzara and Jean Hans Arp sought against the state through Dada as well. These also founded the Cabaraet Voltaire in Zurich. This is an early centre of Dada events and protests. Most of the Dadaist ended up being surrealist after Dadaism. In fact Dada led to several important art inventions like for example Photo montage. They influenced other modern movements such as Surrealism and Pop art.

One of Dada’s characteristics is that they never followed any rules. Dada was intended to provoke emotions like shock from the viewer. Dadaist used different kind of mediums for their art, like wood, glass and even plaster. They made use mostly of Photomontage technique and explosive typography. They used no order and intended to destroy syntax.  Their work was never arranged in any traditional or recognized rules but they broke every rule and created something new.  Photomontage was the new way of photo manipulation. It was an extension of Picasso’s collages but they were used to construct rather than paint.

Other characteristics of Dada by John Heartfield are violent contrast, freely drawn lettering and also heavy typeface. He produced aggressive illustrations. The other leading force behind Dada is Kurt Schwitters. He named a magazine Merz, which is also a random word. In this magazine, he was criticized for not being destructive and random. In fact some said he was being too organized and in fact this is the beginning of layout organization.

In conclusion, even though Dada started as a protest against the post war state of society, its aim was not to create an art movement. They ended up creating a very important style in art that influenced almost all modern movements that came after. I think that sometimes every artist feels the need to break the rules and create something new and, generally these ideas end up in master pieces.

Bibliography

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Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm
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Wikipedia, 2014. Wikipedia. [Online]
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