Dadaism

A LOOK AT

THE HISTORY OF THE DADA ART MOVEMENT

ORIGINS

Dada originated during a period when literary and artistic movements such as Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism were based primarily in France, Italy, and Germany.

ORIGIN DEBATE

Most art historians and people who lived during this time period agree that the Dada movement was prompted by the Cabaret Voltaire bar in Zürich.

ZURICH DADA

The Dadaists saw such concepts as a result of bourgeois society, which was so indifferent that it would sooner wage war against itself than confront the established systems.

BERLIN DADA

Raoul Hausmann, who was instrumental in establishing Dada in Berlin, wrote the manifesto Synthetic Cino of Painting (1918), in which he denounced Expressionism and the art critics who supported it.

NETHERLANDS DADA

Dadaism art in the Netherlands was founded mostly by Theo van Doesburg, who is best known for pioneering the De Stijl movement and the journal that bore the same name.

POETRY AND MUSIC

Dadaist poems challenged traditional notions of poetry, such as form and arrangement, as well as the interaction of sound and verbal meaning.

DADA'S LEGACY

By 1924, Dada had merged with Surrealism in Paris, and artists had moved on to other concepts and trends such as Social Realism, Surrealism, and other kinds of modernism.

NOTABLE DADA ARTWORKS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Reciting the Sound Poem “Karawane” (1916)  by Hugo Ball

OTHER NOTABLE WORKS

Untitled (Squares Arranged according to the Laws of Chance) (1917) by Hans Arp The Spirit of our Time (1920) by Raoul Hausmann Chinese Nightingale (1920) by Max Ernst Merzpicture 46A. The Skittle Picture (1921) by Kurt Schwitters Rayograph (1922) by Man Ray