ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Dada - A hundred years of Counter Culture

Updated on November 21, 2009
Group photo
Group photo
Mona with a mustache
Mona with a mustache

We are Dada

The art movement, the Dadaists was created in 1915, at the height of the First World War in Zurich, Switzerland. It was primarily a collection of poets, artists, writers and philosophers who having been exposed to the brutality of modern warfare and its senseless slayings wanted to generate a voice of opposition.

Their works and manifestos were counter culture, anti-art, deploring and rejecting the bourgeois products of the pre-war period. They were great theorisers and postulators of art, publishing thesis, pamphlets and journals promoting their vision of the creative process. The voice that they made went on to influence a number of other movements, who have their roots and ideals in the foundations of the Dadaists. Amongst these were the Avant-garde, Surrealists, Nouveau Realists, Pop Art and Punk.

Tzara's Play
Tzara's Play

Yeah Yeah!!

Naming the Dada, there are two stories as to how the group adopted the name, firstly after Romanian artists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco’s mocking use of the word “Da”. Romanian meaning “Yeah”, a kind of flippant off hand gesture. “Yeah, yeah, whatever” from which you get “Da da”…. The other version tells how one day while in a café discussing naming the collective, Tzara, in a random act, stabbed his pocket knife into a French-German Dictionary. In hitting the French word Dada; a child’s hobby horse, they had their name.

The Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich in 1916 had been the first centre of exhibition and promotion, here Tzara, Janco, Jean Arp and Hugo Ball would put on chaotic plays, read poetry and play Dada music. The European Dadaists also included Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, Clement Pansaers and Hannah Hoch. After the war, they initially working out of Berlin, the front-line for anti cultural, pseudo-political expression at the time. Later the group’s activities centred on Paris until the splintering and eventual dissolving of the movement around 1924.

Duchamp - Fountain
Duchamp - Fountain
Hoch - Photomontage
Hoch - Photomontage

Spreading the word.

American Dada was less political, not as disillusioned and radical as their European counterparts. Exiles like Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia joined with American artists Man Ray and Beatrice Wood to produce ironic, humorous views of the traditionalist’s art. Duchamp’s piece “Fountain”, a urinal signed R Mutt caused outrage, while Man Ray art specialised in photographic techniques.

Other Dada centres sprung up during the early twenties, Holland, Georgia, Yugoslavia and Japan all established journals, plays, artworks and manifestos. Tokyo had its versions in the MAVO and Jun groups, Dragan Aleksic started Yugo-Dada and Dutchman Theo V. Doesburg published De Stijl magazine.

Dada was a wide-ranging, far-reaching liberted movement and ultimately its demise was inevitable. It transformed into a number of different art styles but perhaps best represents the birth of Modernism.Their anarchic approach made  it possible for other groups to follow on the ground they broke.

Man Ray - Viola
Man Ray - Viola
Ruth Hemus
Ruth Hemus

The Legacy

Many Dada artist's playful, expressionistic experiments led to the development of a number of creative techniques still commonly used today.

Collage - Pictures made from mixed media, photos, material, vegetation.

Photomontage - Images that combined cut out and rearranged photographs, an early photoshop.

Frottage - Artworks created by making rubbing of textures and assembling them together.

Assemblage - Building of sculptural forms using everyday objects.

Readymades - Found objects, claimed as art and exhibited.

These were all processes that were developed and flourished under the Dadaists and even today they are the stock in trade experiments of any First year Art Student the world over. Nearly a hundred years on and artists are still trying to re-invent Dada. The found object and graffiti, the chaotic plays and nonsense lyrics, used in an attempt to shock.

So remember it's already probably been done, and better, move on.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)