What is Dadaism?

Dadaism was a movement in modern art that started as a result of World War I. A common hatred of the war brought artists together. They believed that the casualties of the war were unjust. The purpose of Dadaism was to satirize the limitations of the modern world. While society viewed capitalism and technological advancement as an improvement, the Dadaists believed society’s idea of progress was wrong. Dada reached its peak between 1916 and 1922. Dada movements spread through Europe in cities such as Berlin, Zurich, Cologne, Budapest, Paris, and even traveled to the United States by way of New York. Dada served a different purpose in each location. For example, Dadaists in Berlin took part in political debate to provoke the public to think for themselves while the Zurich’s Dadaists relied on irony, irrationality, and shock effect of their literary provocations (Elger 9).

Dadaism’s core values center upon a rejection of logic, reason, and the aestheticism of modern capitalist society. Dadaist philosophy challenged traditional views of war, class, and technology. The work produced by Dada artists featured elements of nonsense, abstraction, and expressionism. Some of the techniques Dadaists brought to light were assemblage, collage, and photomontage. Dadaists believed that anyone can make art, and that everyone can be artists. Dadaism eventually ended when the movement became mainstream, which contradicted all of its founding ideas. Many Dada artists moved out of Zurich, leaving no one to lead the movement. Dada served as a strong influence on later art movements such as Surrealism and Constructivism (Henkels 15).

Dadaist Ideology

Some of the most notable Dada leaders were Tristan Tzara and Richard Hulsenbeck who both wrote manifestos attempting to define Dadaism. Tristan Tzara published the first German Dadaist Manifesto in 1918 with a collection of all of many artists’ thoughts and words about Dada including the artists mentioned above. There are many myths about how Dada received its name and who is the true founder of the movement. Tzara would say that he found the word randomly in a dictionary. Hulsenbeck would say he discovered the word when he was looking for a name for a singer at the Cabaret Voltaire (Elger 11).

An Analysis of an Excerpt from Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto

In his Dada Manifesto of 1918, Tristan Tzara defines Dada as "a word that throws up ideas so that they can be shot down; every bourgeois is a little playwright, who invents different subjects and who, instead of situating suitable characters on the level of his own intelligence, like chrysalises on chairs, tries to find causes or objects to give weight to his plot, a talking and self-defining story” (Tzara 14). In this quote, Tzara compares the materialistic society to playwrights. When Tzara says, “ instead of situating suitable characters on the level of his own intelligence, like chrysalises on chairs, tries to find causes or objects to give weight to his plot,” he is arguing that society would rather spend their time with material items such as technology rather than connect and share thoughts and experiences with another human being. To Tzara, Dadaism was a critique of bourgeois values such as technology and consumerism. In his Manifesto, he calls for the perseverance of human integrity against the corrupted morality and customs of the capitalist society (Henkels 378). Tzara argued that through Dada the artist can separate themselves from the audience because art is individual and subjective. Art can be whatever the artists says it is.

An Analysis of an Excerpt from Richard Hulsenbeck’s First Manifesto

In his first Dada Manifesto, Richard Hulsenbeck writes, “Dadaism for the first time has ceased to take an aesthetic attitude toward life, and this it accomplishes by tearing all the slogans of ethics, culture and inwardness, which are merely cloaks for weak muscles, into their components” (qtd. in Harrison 258). Huelsenbeck expresses his view that Dadaism is a positive change and movement that brings back an authentic human experience or “aesthetic attitude toward life” to the corrupt society in which we live. An authentic human experience is connecting with another person through shared experience or intelligence rather than buy consumer products and trying to all be the same person. Order and logic has controlled society, limiting society from finding their individuality. The “slogans of ethics, culture and inwardness” he describes are the material items and technology that society obsesses over. When Hulsenbeck elaborates calling the slogans “merely cloaks for weak muscles,” he is showing his frustration that society is so close to breaking free of the material items or “slogans” that society puts on people, but still have yet to make it a reality. When society gives into the material items, everyone becomes the same person, thereby eliminating individuality. Hulsenbeck believes society can move forward and become strong people if everyone embraces Dadaism.