Tuesday, November 13, 2007

More Dada!

For heydave:



Marcel Duchamp. (American, born France. 1887-1968). Network of Stoppages. Paris 1914. Oil and pencil on canvas, 58 5/8" x 6' 5 5/8" (148.9 x 197.7 cm). Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund and gift of Mrs. William Sisler. © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp

More about this painting and about Dadaism in general is here and of course here.

From the Wikipedia article:

Dada was an informal international movement, with participants in Europe and North America. The beginnings of Dada correspond to the outbreak of World War I. For many participants, the movement was a protest against the barbarism of that War, against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity — in art and more broadly in society — that corresponded to the war. [1]

Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois (capitalist) society had led people into the horrors of war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality. For example, George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest "against this world of mutual destruction".[2]


Seems that today we have a bit of a different problem - the scales tipped too far away from "reason" and "logic" (which certainly didn't lead the current Powers that Be, and hasn't for a long time!), and too far toward chaos and absurdity. What say you?

9 comments:

heydave said...

I would argue that the scales lean toward finding a logic in the status quo, irrespective of whether that leads to absurdity.

Shout long enough with your fingers in your ears and you begin to think you're spewing a representative voice.

Hence, a Dubya "mandate."

heydave said...

Oh, and thanks so much for the touch of dada. Can't get enough!

AnnPW said...

Happy to oblige, heydave!

Mike Thomas said...

I don't get it.
Dadaism, I mean.
Wasn't that a song by The Police?
I guess I should go read the Wiki link...

heydave said...

No, that was DE DO da da.

AnnPW said...

I think not getting it is precisely the point, Mike! Congratulations!

D. Sidhe said...

Can I take this opportunity to wave hi to heydave? I don't see you around much lately, so it's good to know where to look now.

heydave said...

Don't tell anyone, but I ducked out of work, indulging in a 4 hour lunch to play golf. Somewhere between Zen and dada it is.

capmconnundrum said...

I think also there's an element pf pranksterism to Dada. From reading Man Ray's Biography, it sounds like fun. Furry teacups porcelain"fountains" fake money picturing M. Duchamp in a soap-suds hairdo. I have a friend who took a studio art course in Dada...That's SO not Dada :^)