05/10 THE THIRD VRF STYLE

THE LITTLE BIG GUY

Dada, represented here by Marcel Duchamp, is unlike our other styles because it was 1. short-lived (1915-1922) 2. isolated from the art system 3. it has left little museum work Despite this, it has made a great media impact and, today, it has a huge reputation: Conceptual and Brit Art, for example, admire and recycle it a lot. Why is this and which of these two is voted the most significant piece of 20thC art ?

Legacy
DADAS IMPACT IS FELT THROUGHOUT THE CENTURY
these styles use everyday items / mix high and low culture / make the ordinary extraordinary
DADA SURREALISM POP

BRIT ART

Legacy 2
Our time chart reveals Dadas little big guy reputation
1906 1914 cubofuturism W A R 1918 dada 1939 surrealism W A R 1950 1960 1990 pop art abst expressionism minimalism brit art

early abstract art

Dada can be viewed as the opposite of Abstract Art

until the 1960s abstract art styles overshadowed it

But Dada inspired Surrealism, Pop and Brit Art

all using everyday objects, ideas and shock tactics

Dada had a strong debt to CuboFuturism

its nonsense language, publicity stunts, and its collage but there is a major difference between them (see p. 9)

Legacy 3: Design and Media

Dada seems to us like Punk: it is do-it-yourself, anti-business and shocking - an approach now continued in the digital age

DEFINITION
A movement of irreverent,unbridled protest against the state of western society. Members saw art as decadent and middle class: they staged events (happenings) designed to shock and they created works out of unconventional materials or based on chance

Dada attacks art and society - it is aesthetic and political The former experimented with the language of art, its limits and methods, solving artistic problems without the usual means. Even asking what is art ? The latter was concerned with its power to change the world - it could protest, satirize, criticize and dream a political response to its age

GENESIS: THE GREAT WAR

Arguably both sides of Dada are the result of the Great War (1914 - 18)
Dada was a protest against the humiliating fact of world war in the twentieth century The war lead to dismay and protest - its impact meant that no artist could or would feel the same again

The Great War 2:

View this clip and then assess which causes are linked the which effects

THE WAR EXPERIENCE (14 - 18) 1 2 3 4 5

The media sells the war with lies and propaganda The ruling establishment says that it is your patriotic duty to serve your country Millions are slaughtered in the stalemate of trench warfare The wealthy get richer during the war and arms dealers get richer The old, who dont fight, cannot know what the young have been through

THE DADA RESPONSE (15 - 22) A B C D E

The war generation feel cut off and want to change the world (utopianism) The old languages of art / media are now devalued and we must invent a new language of art Artists want to tear down establishments traditions and art forms (nihilism) Pacifists and artists have to find neutral places to protest and form groups Horrified artists feel that they have to end capitalism and the art that it buys and sells

Great War 3:
Optimism is replaced by pessimism, utopianism by nihilism

This is what separates Dada from Cubofuturism

MARCEL DUCHAMP
This French artist and writer developed many of the Dada strategies before the war The anti-Picasso for some, he is an ideas man devoted to provocation and manipulation There is an evolution in his work that we can trace from 1910
1. 2. 3. 4. Cubofuturism Experimentation Criticism/Satire Conceptualism
working in Paris new methods/materials mocking art & society art is about ideas, not products or beauty

Evolving the Dada Style 1

1912 Paris: Duchamp uses and examines the CuboFuturist styles and methods 1914 Paris: he takes collage further into readymades, leaving handmade, crafted art-making behind and, instead, intervening and transforming The idea succeeds the object: what is important is that Mr Mutt chose the urinal.. Do you think he was inspired by film making at all ?

Evolving the Dada Style 2

1915 New York: Duchamp is impressed by the outrage caused by the Armory Show art can make headlines and get noticed (cf Futurism) 1916 Paris: makes art ideas conceptual, and a puzzle that seems to undermine art This direction alters everything - art is now about intervening, transforming, shocking and questioning (but not making) - does this sound familiar today ?

Case Study - LHOOQ*

Use this work by Duchamp (1919) to understand the Dada keywords. Does Duchamp succeed in Shocking, Satirizing and Communicating ?

Objet Trouve Performance Shock Photomontage Multimedia Rule breaking Chance Absurd Childlike Conceptual - puns/homophones Nihilistic Utopian

The Large Glass (1914 - 21)

The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Batchelors, Even

Look up Duchamps major piece from this time - discover a further obsession with taboo subjects and new methods
Duchamp is enigmatic: is he challenging or just shocking? He didnt explain: the silence of Duchamp is overrated (Beuys) Chess, money making and interviews replaced art-making for him after this, or so it seemed

Duchamp: a life in Dada

ZURICH: THE CABARET VOLTAIRE

This was the main group: there was also Paris and New York Writers and performers in neutral Switzerland set up a cultural cabaret Chance, madness and childlike innocence were the particular obsessions for these refugee intellectuals All shared a desire to use these qualities to de-stabilize society and its establishment art

Kurt Schwitters
made large environments out of found, readymade junk generated by commerce (merz) and was a performance artist

Hans Arp
made toy-like sculptures developed out of chance techniques,subverting both logic and art education

John Heartfield and Hannah Hoch

invented photomontages to attack city life and respectable values: nightmarish but strangely convincing images of the city that look forward to Surrealisms dream-world and, later, Punks agit-prop

George Grosz and Otto Dix

very much political Dada: reacting against the horrors of war, its casualities and the rise of fascism on the streets: cruel satire

1922: PARIS, END, TRANSFORMATION

The ending of the war (1918) left Dada with no uniting enemy or focus and, on returning to their home countries, Dada refugees set up small groups. In Germany their agenda was taken up with politics and attacking fascism. In Paris the Dada group become, briefly, the centre of the art world. Their stunts, events and outrages in Paris brought Dadas methods to a wide audience but by 1922 the group had split up and many of its members became a part of the next art sensation in Paris, Surrealism (eg Max Ernst)

CROSSOVER 1
Like the Futurism before it, Dada was multimedia, media savvy and involved in areas not associated with art - thus its impact in design and media is wide-ranging and it can seem to predict aspects of Postmodern (lo fi, subversive and (digital) media-friendly

CROSSOVER 2
Thanks to Fluxus (Paris, 1960s) and Malcolm McClaren, Dadas influence on 70s Punk fashion, graphics, typography and music was notable (see Vivienne Westwood, Linder and Jamie Reid): suddenly Dada was everywhere

YOUR FURTHER RESEARCH

Your task for the VRF assignment is to show that you understand how this style has crossed over into the areas of design, craft and media by finding images of examples that are appropriate to your pathway/course and are found in Manchester Remember that the online lectures provide you with more examples of crossover for the assignment (along with an illustrated summary of the Dada style, with film clips and links)

Note that the guidance on writing your captions contains keywords to help you in your decisions and explanations