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My work is inspired and informed by a number of different past art movements. Dada was one of the key turning points
of art history and has had a significant effect on the process's that influence what i produce. The following descriptions
of Dada have been taken from the book Dada edited by Willy Verkauf. I have selected sentences or paragraphs in a non chronological
order so that it gives a feel or a gist of what was happening within dadaism.
"...the only thing they really had in common was their battle cry 'dada' challenging the times in which they were living..."
"... these artists, who sooner or later became war resistors..."
"dadaism had to fulfill a mission as 'shock treatment' for a crazed humanity and chiefly for its intellectual protagonists
at that particular moment'
'the tearing down of 'recognised' 'canonised codes of art...to break down forms that had outlived their time"
"Dada was the hectic outcry of the tormented creature in the artist, of his prophetic, despairing conscience."
Quote by Hugo Ball " What we call Dada is clownery out of the void...Our Cabaret is a gesture, every word spoken or sung
here says at least one thing these humiliating times have not succeeded in unresting respect from us.."
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(The signatories of this
manifesto live in France,
America, Spain,
Germany,
Italy, Switzerland,
Belgium, etc. but have
no nationality.)
DADA EXCITES EVERYTHING
DADA knows everything. DADA spits everything out.
HAS DADA EVER SPOKEN TO YOU:
about Italy
about accordions
about women's pants
about the fatherland
about sardines
about
Fiume
about Art (you exaggerate my friend)
about gentleness
about D'Annunzio
what a horror
about heroism
about
mustaches
about lewdness
about sleeping with Verlaine
about the ideal (it's nice)
about Massachusetts
about
the past
about odors
about salads
about genius, about genius, about genius
about the eight-hour day
about the
Parma violets
DADA doesn't speak. DADA has no fixed idea. DADA doesn't catch flies.
THE MINISTRY IS OVERTURNED. BY WHOM?
BY DADA
The Futurist is dead. Of What? Of DADA
A Young girl commits suicide. Because of What? DADA
The spirits are telephoned. Who invented it? DADA
Someone
walks on your feet. It's DADA
If you have serious ideas about life,
If you make artistic discoveries
and if all of
a sudden your head begins to crackle with laughter,
If you find all your ideas useless and ridiculous, know that
IT IS DADA BEGINNING TO SPEAK TO
YOU
cubism constructs a cathedral of artistic liver paste
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
expressionism poisons artistic sardines
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
simultaneism is still at its first artistic communion
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
futurism wants to mount in an artistic lyricism-elevator
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
unanism embraces allism and fishes with an artistic line
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
neo-classicism discovers the good deeds of artistic art
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
paroxysm makes a trust of all artistic cheeses
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
ultraism recommends the mixture of these seven artistic things
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
creationism vorticism imagism also propose some artistic recipes
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
50 francs reward to the person who finds the best
way to explain DADA to us
Dada passes everything through a new net.
Dada is the bitterness which opens its laugh on
all that which has been made consecrated forgotten in our language in our brain in our habits.
It says to you: There is
Humanity and the lovely idiocies which have made it happy to this advanced age
DADA HAS ALWAYS EXISTED
THE HOLY VIRGIN WAS ALREADY A DADAIST
DADA IS NEVER RIGHT
Citizens, comrades, ladies, gentlemen
Beware of forgeries!
Imitators of DADA want to present DADA in an artistic form which it has never had
You are presented today in a pornographic form, a vulgar and baroque spirit which is not the
PURE IDIOCY claimed by DADA
BUT DOGMATISM AND PRETENTIOUS IMBECILITY
Paris January 12, 1921
E. Varèse, Tr. Tzara, Ph. Soupault,
Soubeyran, J. Rigaut, G. Ribe-
mont-Dessaignes, M. Ray, F. Pi-
cabia,
B. Péret, C. Pausaers
R.Hülsenbeeks, J. Evola, M. Ernst,
P. Eluard, Suz. Duchamp, M. Du-
champ, Crotti, G. Cantarelli,
Marg.
Buffet, Gab. Buffet, a. Breton
Baargeld, Arp., W. C. Arensberg,
L. Aragon
For all information
write "AU SANS PAREIL"
37, Avenue Kléber.
Tel. PASSY 25-22
--- From Approximate Man and Other Writings,
Translated and Edited by
Mary Ann Caws
(Wayne State University Press)
Reprinted in
"Teachers & Writers Collaborative"
5 Union Square
W.
New York City 10003
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