DADAISM - Research

Dadaism or Dada is a post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic design. The movement was, among other things, a protest against the barbarism of the War and what Dadaists believed was an oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art and everyday society; its works were characterized by a deliberate irrationality and the rejection of the prevailing standards of art. It influenced later movements including Surrealism. According to its proponents, Dada was not art; it was anti-art. For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with aesthetics, Dada ignored them. If art is to have at least an implicit or latent message, Dada strives to have no meaning -interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on the viewer. If art is to appeal to sensibilities, Dada offends. Perhaps it is then ironic that Dada is an influential movement in Modern art. Dada became a commentary on art and the world, thus becoming art itself. The artists of the Dada movement had become disillusioned by art, art history and history in general. Many of them were veterans of World War I and had grown cynical of humanity after seeing what men were capable of doing to each other on the battlefields of Europe. Thus they became attracted to a nihilistic view of the world (they thought that nothing mankind had achieved was worthwhile, not even art), and created art in which chance and randomness formed the basis of creation. The basis of Dada is nonsense. With the order of the world destroyed by World War I, Dada was a way to express the confusion that was felt by many people as their world was turned upside down.

Example paintings of Dadaism:

Resource: http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/dadaism.htm

Dadaism
Dada began as an anti-art movement, in the sense that it rejected the way art was appreciated and defined in contemporary art scenes. Founded in Zurich, Switzerland, the movement was a response to World War I. It had no unifying aesthetic characteristics but what brought together the Dadaists was that they shared a nihilistic attitude towards the traditional expectations of artists and writers. The word Dada literally means both "hobby horse" and "father", but was chosen at random more for the naive sound. What After finding its origins in Zurich, the Dada movement spread the Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, some parts of Russia, and New York city. In Zurich, the movement was centered in Hugo Balls Cabaret Voltaire, where many of the founding Dadaist gathered to express their ideas. In the United States, Dada found its central location at Alfred Steiglitzs gallery "291" and the studio of the Walter Arensbergs. Neutral during both World Wars, Switzerland was an ideal place for objectors to the war, those avoiding military service, and those who wished to find a place for free expression. Other elements integral to the Dada movement were the non-attempt to underlie work with any reference to intellectual analysis. Dada was also a reaction the bourgeois Victorian values of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The work was also absurd and playful but at times intuitive and even cryptic. Methods of production were unconventional, employing the chance technique, and found objects. Dadaists rejection of these values was an attempt to make a statement on the social values and cultural trends of a contemporary world facing a devastating period of war.

Bibliography:

http://wwar.com/masters/movements/dadaism.html

Dadaism
Dadaism is an art form that rose out of the restlessness of artists in the early twentieth century. The term "dada" literally means hobby horse, something that has nothing to do with what the movement actually stood for. It was set into motion by Tristan Tzara, and was created to be art that was the complete lack of art. It was full of contradictions, and spoke out against the rigid structure of previous art, as well as against the walls of society.f Dadaism was intended to be nonsense art, then why are authors linking it to DJ culture? Most likely, it's because Dadaism inspired several related movements, such as Musique Concrete (discussed above) and Kurt Schwitters' movement called Merz (discussed below). To be more specific, the Dadaist notion of including found objects in art (i.e., assembling random objects and calling it art) is similar to Musique Concrete's concept of including sound objects (i.e., samples) in a composition, as well as Kurt Schwitter's collages, which included sound poetry. The ideal of the modern art/contemporary art movement of Dadaism was to fight art with art. A great example is Marcel Duchamp's 'L.H.O.O.Q' which mocks the mona Lisa by installing a mustache on her face. The idea of Dada was to offend and shock the art world.In art, Dadaism is the concept of anti-art. All art that one sees is just a product of the society that created it. Because Dadaism is in opposition to all society, it is in opposition to the art which society produced as well. Bibliography: http://www.lycos.com/info/dadaism--art.html