Dada

Dadaism was a multi-disciplinary movement that sought to undermine social, political and cultural norms with works that were intentionally absurd and irrational and more expressive than the current art being shown/created during the time.

The term Dada was coined after its pluralistic meaning, it sounds babyish and silly, it means "yes, yes" in Romanian, "hobby-horse" in French and "Goodbye" in German for examples. It had many more meanings for a variety of different things that were all unconnected so it was used for the fact it represented that Dada could include everything.

Cabaret Voltaire was set up in 1916 in Zurich by Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings who were German refugees looking for way to make a living, it was as a cabaret for artists and political purposes and had performances that reveled in chaos, irony and nonsense, it proved to be a central place in the founding of the anarchic movement know as Dada.

Ball inspired the use of sound and words made African sound poems and performances but the response was negative to the use of African Art and influences in their work since seen as primitive and offensive. Ball became more entrances with this idea an moved away from the meaning of words, he instead decided to look at the meaning of sounds - which led him to create the sound poem "Elephant Caravan."

After six months of being opened the Cabaret had to be closed since they was unable to pay their rent.

Dada Artists

Giorgio de Cerio - Metaphysics (Uncertainty of the Poet 1913)

Marcel Duchamp (on the outside of DADA)  - Radical, changer of modern art. When he decided that something ordinary could become a piece of art (Fountain 1917) that the artists brain was just as important as there ability to create a piece of work.

"Bicycle Wheel" 1915-23

"L.H.O.O.Q"

"Fountain" wasn't actually his work -was more in line with what his sister was doing, the Baroness Dada (Elsa von Freytag.)

Rrose Selavy - Duchamp alter-ego artist with own body of work (Rrose in French sound like Eros "erotic love.")

Dada and Surrealism

The Dadaist movement opened the door for the early Surrealist artists, unlike Dada which was a movement that just happened by the joining of all these different thinkers, surrealism was much more organised and had a less chaotic but expressive nature.

Joan Miro - College Painting 1930 Automatic painting. Women Bird by Midnight  1949. 

The Flight 1963

Salvador Dali - The Dreamscapers, artists who paints their dreams. The Burning Giraffe 1937.

The Sleep 1937.

Kurt Schwitters -Lesser known surrealism, Schwitters was influenced more by Dadaism during the surrealism time.

Max Ernst - The Embalmed Forest 1933.

Rene Magritte - The Treachery of Images 1929.

The Great War 1964.

The Human Condition 1933.