Dada and Surrealism
- These movements were, in many ways, anarchic. They were they to deconstruct the art of the avant-gardes and of mainstream culture. Their work is very conceptual.
Dada
- The Dada movement was born in Zurich as a result of World War I and the dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. World War I was the first war that weapons, produced by the Industrial Revolution, were used and applied on a hitherto unseen scale. The advancements in technology were used for mass destruction. The war caused millions of casualties, on a scale completely unknown before.
- An ideology called Positivism was developed. This ideology included using machines for good.
- WW1 was one of the first dividers of the 20th century. Dada, as a movement, was an assault against rationality, against things that make sense. The other response is seen throughout the avant-gardes and is known as the return to order.
- Dada formed in Zurich, which was a neutral place. It became a hub of intellectuals. In 1916, many poets gathered in Cabaret Voltaire (a cafe with a paradoxical name), and launched the Dada movement. The name was supposedly selected at random by the point of a dagger in a dictionary... but this is skeptical due to the many irrational meanings associated with the word.
Dada were very dependent on Futurist principles. The performative nature of Futurism is just one element inherited by Dada. Main elements of Dada: Music, Visual Arts, Performance Poetry - often performed in different languages to create nonsense. Dada was everything that goes against established meaning. It was a very deconstructive movement. It's specific aim was the freedom of association.
- Jean Harp was one of the most important exponents of Dada. Harp claimed that any attempt to make meaning of the world through art was pointless; it can only be a matter of association. His Abstract Collages were compositionally design at random as determined by dropped cut paper onto the ground and sticking it down however it landed. This random gesture was their aesthetic. They created an expression of freedom and irrationality.
- Marcel Duchamp had an enormous impact on 20th century art. He was the first great conceptual artist. His Readmades are composed of two unrelated objects put together to create something new. The creating of alternative meanings challenges our traditional perception of reality.
- Duchamp submitted Fountain (an industrially produced urinal, put on its side and on a pedestal, and signed under the pseudonym R. MUTT) to the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York 1917. It was rejected by the committee, even though the rules of the exhibition stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee. He and his friends heavily protested its rejection.
- Until this point, art was unique (apart from prints), a result of craftsmanship, but Duchamp was saying that in a modern world, art can be anything. What counts here is not the urinal itself, but the gesture. It goes against the uniqueness, it goes away from the object - he didn't produce it - what counts is the discourse, the reaction. He is challenging what was previously taken for granted. The modern avant-garde movements proposed forms of art that were less and less connected to craftsmanship. He was posing the question: What is art? Most of modern art can be considered only if you have a cultural apparatus surrounding it; art that mediates on what is and what isn't art. Challenges the established perception of what art is, provokes reactions. A moving away from the object, into the realm of ideas. This is one of the most important elements of contemporary art.
- Dada moved to Berlin, where the German artists established their own school of Dada - which in itself is a paradox. Here Dada acquired very political overtones. Most of the participants were apart of the communist movement. Raul Hausmann stuck to the nihilistic principles of the Zurich Dada. His Photomontage represents the free association of objects. The collage is, in a way, the perfect way to express Dada - the bringing together of objects that belong to different associations, it goes against the established perceptions of reality.
- George Grosz went on to a more traditional form of art, using watercolours and oils. Although he gravitated around the Dada group in the early 1920s he is in many was a much more traditional painter. He used his work for propaganda purposes, depicting brainwashed, mutilated soldiers that have been transformed into machines.
- Dada also migrated to Paris - it spreads far beyond national boundaries, it was one of the most powerful critical tools against traditional forms of knowledge. Man Ray was one of the most famous artists who embraced Dada. He created photograms, which he called Rayographs, creating images composed of random objects. He displays the same principles of freedom of association.
Surrealism.
- Surrealism is connected to Dada, as both movements were concerned with going against prescription. But they were also very different. Dada is to do with bringing unassociated objects together, whereas Surrealism is more about the workings of the unconscious mind. Dada is more iconoclastic, about destroying visual culture. Surrealism is more constructive, the world of dreams and the subconscious, and the ideas of Freud has equal standards now. They should have equal standards, our instincts and repressed forces of individual personality - which we repress in society - are essential to understanding reality.
- The Surrealist Manifesto was established by André Breton, a poet - Surrealism was initially a literary movement. He became a guru of Surrealism.
- Many painters idolised De Chirico as a 'proto-Surrealist'. The subconscious mind reassembles reality in a free way, with absurd perspectives. De Chirico plays with perceptions and images. He played an important, defining role in what should be the aesthetic of Surrealism.
- Max Ernst used the Frottage and Grattage techniques to make some of his images - making rubbings of objects and turning them into obscure landscapes, and making prints by folding a painted surface onto another so the paint transfers, and again making these impressions into dream-like landscapes.
- Ernst also took 19th century Victorian illustrations and cut and reassembled them to create something very surreal.
- Reneé Magritte was Belgian, his technique was very painterly. Due to this he was never accepted into the clique of the Surrealists, spending so much time in painting defies the immediacy of the principles of Surrealism. His technique was incredibly precise.
- Dali perhaps abused the Surrealist credo, he took the world of the subconscious to the next level with his melting clocks and baron landscapes. He manages to make the world of the unconscious a physical place.
- Freedom of association.
Dada
- The Dada movement was born in Zurich as a result of World War I and the dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. World War I was the first war that weapons, produced by the Industrial Revolution, were used and applied on a hitherto unseen scale. The advancements in technology were used for mass destruction. The war caused millions of casualties, on a scale completely unknown before.
- An ideology called Positivism was developed. This ideology included using machines for good.
- WW1 was one of the first dividers of the 20th century. Dada, as a movement, was an assault against rationality, against things that make sense. The other response is seen throughout the avant-gardes and is known as the return to order.
- Dada formed in Zurich, which was a neutral place. It became a hub of intellectuals. In 1916, many poets gathered in Cabaret Voltaire (a cafe with a paradoxical name), and launched the Dada movement. The name was supposedly selected at random by the point of a dagger in a dictionary... but this is skeptical due to the many irrational meanings associated with the word.
Dada were very dependent on Futurist principles. The performative nature of Futurism is just one element inherited by Dada. Main elements of Dada: Music, Visual Arts, Performance Poetry - often performed in different languages to create nonsense. Dada was everything that goes against established meaning. It was a very deconstructive movement. It's specific aim was the freedom of association.
- Jean Harp was one of the most important exponents of Dada. Harp claimed that any attempt to make meaning of the world through art was pointless; it can only be a matter of association. His Abstract Collages were compositionally design at random as determined by dropped cut paper onto the ground and sticking it down however it landed. This random gesture was their aesthetic. They created an expression of freedom and irrationality.
- Marcel Duchamp had an enormous impact on 20th century art. He was the first great conceptual artist. His Readmades are composed of two unrelated objects put together to create something new. The creating of alternative meanings challenges our traditional perception of reality.
- Duchamp submitted Fountain (an industrially produced urinal, put on its side and on a pedestal, and signed under the pseudonym R. MUTT) to the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York 1917. It was rejected by the committee, even though the rules of the exhibition stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee. He and his friends heavily protested its rejection.
- Until this point, art was unique (apart from prints), a result of craftsmanship, but Duchamp was saying that in a modern world, art can be anything. What counts here is not the urinal itself, but the gesture. It goes against the uniqueness, it goes away from the object - he didn't produce it - what counts is the discourse, the reaction. He is challenging what was previously taken for granted. The modern avant-garde movements proposed forms of art that were less and less connected to craftsmanship. He was posing the question: What is art? Most of modern art can be considered only if you have a cultural apparatus surrounding it; art that mediates on what is and what isn't art. Challenges the established perception of what art is, provokes reactions. A moving away from the object, into the realm of ideas. This is one of the most important elements of contemporary art.
- Dada moved to Berlin, where the German artists established their own school of Dada - which in itself is a paradox. Here Dada acquired very political overtones. Most of the participants were apart of the communist movement. Raul Hausmann stuck to the nihilistic principles of the Zurich Dada. His Photomontage represents the free association of objects. The collage is, in a way, the perfect way to express Dada - the bringing together of objects that belong to different associations, it goes against the established perceptions of reality.
- George Grosz went on to a more traditional form of art, using watercolours and oils. Although he gravitated around the Dada group in the early 1920s he is in many was a much more traditional painter. He used his work for propaganda purposes, depicting brainwashed, mutilated soldiers that have been transformed into machines.
- Dada also migrated to Paris - it spreads far beyond national boundaries, it was one of the most powerful critical tools against traditional forms of knowledge. Man Ray was one of the most famous artists who embraced Dada. He created photograms, which he called Rayographs, creating images composed of random objects. He displays the same principles of freedom of association.
Surrealism.
- Surrealism is connected to Dada, as both movements were concerned with going against prescription. But they were also very different. Dada is to do with bringing unassociated objects together, whereas Surrealism is more about the workings of the unconscious mind. Dada is more iconoclastic, about destroying visual culture. Surrealism is more constructive, the world of dreams and the subconscious, and the ideas of Freud has equal standards now. They should have equal standards, our instincts and repressed forces of individual personality - which we repress in society - are essential to understanding reality.
- The Surrealist Manifesto was established by André Breton, a poet - Surrealism was initially a literary movement. He became a guru of Surrealism.
- Many painters idolised De Chirico as a 'proto-Surrealist'. The subconscious mind reassembles reality in a free way, with absurd perspectives. De Chirico plays with perceptions and images. He played an important, defining role in what should be the aesthetic of Surrealism.
- Max Ernst used the Frottage and Grattage techniques to make some of his images - making rubbings of objects and turning them into obscure landscapes, and making prints by folding a painted surface onto another so the paint transfers, and again making these impressions into dream-like landscapes.
- Ernst also took 19th century Victorian illustrations and cut and reassembled them to create something very surreal.
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| René Magritte, Personal Values, 1953, San Francisco MoMa |
- Reneé Magritte was Belgian, his technique was very painterly. Due to this he was never accepted into the clique of the Surrealists, spending so much time in painting defies the immediacy of the principles of Surrealism. His technique was incredibly precise.
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| Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931, MoMa, NYC |
- Dali perhaps abused the Surrealist credo, he took the world of the subconscious to the next level with his melting clocks and baron landscapes. He manages to make the world of the unconscious a physical place.
- Freedom of association.
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