The dada movement was a reaction against everything that was going wrong in modern society, and aversion against its destruction was the central motivating force for this new type of art. There was a feeling that artists had gone mad and that the war was a product of rational, logical thinking. The Dada movement called for anarchy, irrationality, and following the intuitive. The Dada movement had a slim possibility of emerging without the dramatic events of the First World War. The movement was an intense and direct reaction to the spectacle and carnage of war, and the elements of explored imagery were expressed by the subconscious minds of the period.
The Dada movement is now part of our art history more in spite of, than because of, its original intentions. Originating in Zurich and New York on the brink of the First World War Dada quickly spread to Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, and Paris and, to some extent, Russia. As an anti traditional art movement Dada changed the way art was appreciated, and because of it surrealism became much more than an art movement and it thrust home Dada’s subversive attack on rational standards. Both in their own way helped change our modern consciousness. (Achive) In an ambiguous fashion the term Dada was arrived at by chance and this was mirrored in it style because of its lack of formal aesthetic. One of their first defining steps much like all our past art movements was to attack icons of the old culture, but this time it was less rebellion and more of a revulsion. There was a new breed of artists that revolted against the barbarities of war and chose not to take refuge in conventional beauty.
Far from being opposed to basic ideas of art Dadaist strove to find new ways to make new art in new ways. (Willette) Dadaists such as Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters used the technique of photomontage, using illustrations and advertisements cut out of popular magazines. (Achive) He painted Tatlin at Home in 1920 as part of the Berlin Dada movement. The idea of photomontage was as revolutionary as its content, and Dadaist were the first to use photographs as material to create different structures with often jarring and aggressive significance. To some this felt much like the tearing of flesh because their method possessed a propaganda power which their contemporaries had not the courage to exploit. This avant-garde group was deliberately anti-authoritarian and by definition could not have leaders. Aside from philosophy, Dada artists scattered across Europe after the Great War ended. (Willette)
Dada and Surrealism were both movements of writers, poets, artists as being part of a larger intellectual group fearlessly using old-fashioned techniques and subverting realism by painting dreams as if they were real. It can be said that both movements work with chance. Dada’s use of chance was radical and a complete disregard for laws assembling reconvening pieces as poetry. In contrast, Surrealist artists deployed a variety of games, from automatic writing or the exquisite corpse, to approach chance from another position. (Willette)The interest in Dada's historical role has continued to grow from the late forties to the present, despite desultory jabs in all directions. Dadaists did have several redeeming features.They were the first to consciously internationalize a major movement in the arts, and they did manage to develop the emerging techniques and provided a paradigm shift that clearly laid the groundwork for Surrealism and could also be seen as the beginnings of multimedia.
Dada may have been short lived, but it went on to form the basis of many other movements of anti-art. The concept of a movement that existed to reject and poke fun at the world struck a chord with many people. Movements that include surrealism, pop art, punk, post-modernism and abstract art are very different from each other, but what they have in common is their ability to shake people up and to force people into new ways of thinking, or to turn them away. These movements were not Dadaism, but they took and used some of its values. To them and us Dadaism is and was undoubtedly relevant.
Works Cited
Achive, The. Dada and Surrealism. 2012. 14 May 2012 <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/surrealism.html>.
Willette, Dr. Jeanne S. M. Art History Unstuffed: Comparison of Dada and Surrealism. 2011. 14 May 2012 <http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/comparison-of-dada-and-surrealism/>.
