Dadaism

Dadaism

a revolt by certain 20th-century painters and writers in France, Germany, and Switzerland against smugness in traditional art and Western society; their works, illustrating absurdity through paintings of purposeless machines and collages of discarded materials, expressed their cynicism about conventional ideas of form and their rejection of traditional concepts of beauty. — Dadaist, n. (1)

Dada was an early twentieth century art movement starting in Europe, that became international, spreading as far as Russia and Tokyo.  It emerged after the first world war, with many of its artists war veterans who had experienced the brutality of war. As such, Dada became a very anti-war centred movement. From this stemmed an anti-bourgeois and anti-nationalist sentiment as these were the people responsible for the war in their eyes. The artists were very jaded and disillusioned, and the war represented the falling of many social structures that led to the violence. They believed corruption was rife amongst the middle classes and so the Dada movement started out as a rebellion, not only against war, but against the conventional norms of society, especially what was conventionally classed as "art".  It became known as the anti-art movement and poet Tristan Tzara was quoted saying "The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust." (2)

The International Dada Fair in 1920, held in Berlin. The central figure of this was a puppet of a german soldier with a pigs head, hanging from the ceiling. http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/dada 26/11/14

Der Blutige Ernst, George Grosz http://www.dadart.com/dadaism/dada/022-dada-berlin.html 29/11/12

Cut with the Kitchen Knife, Hannah Höch http://www.dadart.com/dadaism/dada/022-dada-berlin.html 29/11/12

1 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Dadaism Viewed 2/11/14

2 http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/dada Viewed 2/11/14