Dada - compendium of definitions - concepts and meanings

Definition of Dada - its concept and meaning


Dada is a literary and artistic movement that emerged during the first world war as a form of protest against the dominant aesthetic canons. The term has its origin in the French dadaisme.
The art historians name Tristan Tzara as the first promoter of this movement who scoffed at the artistic manifestations and that intended to destroy the conventions of the established order. Dada was a critique of the current values during the first world war and the subsequent years and transcended the artistic avant-garde.
This revolutionary pretension makes Dada outsole known as the anti-art. Its members appealed, for example, to unusual materials for the production of artistic works.
Absolute freedom, the immediate, the contradiction and the spontaneity of Dadaism sought to overthrow the laws of logic, still thinking, abstract concepts, the universal and the eternity of the principles. The dadaists proposed chaos above the order and called to break the boundaries between art and life.
Although the origins of the name of the movement are not clear, it is believed that Tzara chose such nomination by the first babbling that performs a child ("given"). The movement sought to create a new form of art from scratch, such as a child starts his way through life.
The influence of Dada makes that, at present, still debate about what is art and what creations must be considered as art. The absence of fixed rules and conventions that the dadaists promulgated still have validity for many artists.

Sources: Definition of Dadaism


Concept of Dadaism


Known as Dadaism to literary and artistic movement which began in 1916 and which, broadly speaking, is based on the irrational, absurd and spontaneous, among other royalties, eliminating drawing the relationship entrepensamiento and expression.
Because of his birth is in need of some social actors, such as Tristan Tzara (Romanian essayist) who fervently opposed to the values on the rise during the first world war and the years that happened at this time, i.e., basically the idea was oppose the aesthetic principles that dominated the scene through the direct mockery of the predominant artistic manifestations.
This virtually revolutionary intention that waved made that in some sectors it has it or considered as anti art, since for example, some of his proposals consisted of the use of those materials rare and unusual when it comes to making artistic pieces.
Although the origins of its name are not as clear that there is, has been spread that Tzara chose the popularly extended term as a consequence that the "given", as the first babbling that the child performs before speaking and then, as the main idea of this movement was just impose a new form of art which started from scratchas well as a child, it would be decided by that denomination.
Its maxims include the following: absolute freedom, supremacy of the immediate, of the chaos above order, breach of the borders of art and life, eternity of principles, universal, abstract favors and the eternity of the principles.
Such was the influence that achieved this movement at the beginning of last century, which even today in day follows the debate about what considered as art and what are expressions that should be included in the category of art.

Sources: Definition of Dadaism


Meaning of Dadaism


In 1916, in the context of the first World War when many young people question the logic of a culture that allows facts like that, at once arises the Dada movement in Switzerland and United States.
The Dada movement has the particularity of not being a movement of rebellion against another former school, but it is based on a questioning of all conceptual art and literature before the first war frame.
The Dada movement implies one attitude rather than a style, a negative and destructive approach that proposes the revision of the traditions and existing artistic conventions until then.
Born in neutral Switzerland in Zurich, refuge of numerous intellectuals and artists in the "Cabaret Voltaire" poetic evenings. Here Tristán Tzara, Hugo Ball and Hans Arp, among others, chosen at random in a dictionary the term "dada" that has no special meaning, and that involves the use of mockery as artistic weapon capable of destroying the most deeply rooted principles.
At the time in New York, Picabia, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, created a similar group that uses irony and provocation in a subversive way. In 1918 joining the Europeans and Dadaism extends throughout Europe. They don't have a coherent program, because his attitude is rejection against what is established and this leads them to the demystification of the artwork and its concept.

The Zurich Group

Switzerland, from the outbreak of war in 1914, becomes a centre of pacifist refugees from all over Europe. There were found all the dissidents from other previous schools, such as German Expressionism, Italian Futurism or French Cubism. In 1916, in Zurich, a group of artists installed in a brewery a small cabaret, to which baptized as "Cabaret Voltaire".
There met philosopher Hugo Ball, the poet Tristán Tzara, the painter Marcel Janco, both Romanian refugees, and the Alsatian painter Jeans (Hans) Arp. From that encounter began a series of activities in the cabaret as well as the magazine that would bear the name of "Dadá" was released.
Tristán Tzara soon became the promoter and main exponent of the Dada movement. Between him and Hugo Ball gave substance to the Dadaist theory.
The origin of the name Dada is unclear and controversial. According to the version, Tzara and Ball, the word emerges from chance: opening the pages of a dictionary with the help of a knife, the first designated term was that: given. According to other versions, were the waiters of Café Terrasse, place where used to find these Central European artists, who first identified the group as given: for those waiters, the languages spoken by those émigrés were incomprehensible, except the syllable "da - da" ("Yes, yes", in Russian and other languages).
In a few months the cafe Voltaire shows were famous in Switzerland city. The Dadaist show was born, loaded with provocative, aggressive tendency, illogical and absurd proposals.
In 1917 Francis Picabia, French painter, also a refugee in Switzerland comes into contact with Tzara. Both will give meaning to the given manifesto of 1918, possibly the most important document of the Dada movement in Zurich. After the end of the war, Dadaism captivates the avant-garde artists of Paris, causing a resurgence of the same. The Zurich given, with the diaspora of its refugees, had finished.
From Zürich it expanded towards Germany and France. In Paris is the fashion movement already in 1923.
Dada left in inheritance to the art of the century XX values transcendent, as it is the importance of imagination, random and automation that collects the surrealism and, later, abstract expressionism; as well as the disappearance of the sole validity of artistic genres conventional to give priority to the idea of artistic process from the product or work of art, advance payment of the happening. The creative artist as the spectator who is who completes the work is so important in artistic creation. It becomes thus the justification of the found object, and the obligation of the recipient in question already accepted artistic realities.
In order to express the rejection of all the social and aesthetic values of the time and all kinds of coding, the dadaists frequently resorted to the use of deliberately incomprehensible literary and artistic methods, which were supported by the absurdity and irrational. Literary Dadaism above all, translates into hectoring activity (seven manifests and numerous magazines) and in celebration of outrageous festivals, halfway between the poetic recital, cabaret theatre and the bloody parody. It was actually antiespectaculos, in which the dadaists, rather than works, exhibited themselves in more provocative attitudes.
Their theatrical performances and their manifestos sought impact or stop perplexed audiences with the aim that it reconsider the established aesthetic values. To do this using new materials such as scrap found in the street, and new methods, such as the inclusion of chance to determine the elements of the works.
The famous recipe for Tristán Tzara to make a Dadaist poem based on scissors, newspapers, random and tail, glue should be interpreted more as another manifestation of hectoring the humor of this author that to the letter. In reality, Tzara, as poet and agitator, knew that no "it amused", but rather "annoyed".

The Group of New York

The Declaration of war also led to the American Group of refugee artists city. Among them there are noteworthy to Duchamp and Picabia. There they joined with avant-garde currents that were brewing since the beginning of the century Harlem, Greenwich Village and Chinatown.
Although New York was not Zurich, nor was this climate of political refugees from the Swiss city, the iconoclastic spirit, recalcitrant and nihilistic was identical.
Born magazine "291", name taken from the number of the house occupied by an art gallery on Fifth Avenue in March 1915. Duchamp, Picabia, Jean Crotti, as refugee European, along with Americans Man Ray, Morton Schamberg and others give life to the given New Yorker.

The Berlin Group

After the war, Germany enters a critical situation. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Spartacist German party - left Socialist - also rehearses the revolution in Germany. In all this social agitation a group of artists will incorporate leftist theories: will be the Dadaist movement.
From the Zurich Group, Richard Huelsenbeck, brings Berlin spirit Dadaist, but much more radical against the previous avant-garde schools (futurism, Cubism). Together with the poet Raoul Hausman promotes declarations and manifests from the 'Club Dada'. Along with the previous ones they will stress the painter Georg Grosz, sharp critic of militarism and of German capitalism in those years, and the Herfelde brothers, one famous documentary of the artistic technique of photomontage, another indispensable editor of Dadaist works of those years.
The Berlin dada movement becomes history by the incorporation of new artistic techniques of dissemination of ideas among the masses, mainly the photomontage. The Constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1919 marks the end of the Dadaist political projects and the resituacion of this group in the artistic mark.

Character of Dadaism

Dadaism can be considered the first art movement which is based on the development of the illogical, of the absurd. Its term was short-lived, but helped entrench a series of attitudes and reflections that are then compiled in surrealism. The dada artist is a producer of art, but also human attitude. Tzara said that dada was "a formula of life".

Its main features include these:

-Dada is the end point of an evolution in art
It is not further develop new proposals from the above, but awareness of the end of the road and attitude of "skip the tapia" toward something new, hence his deep rejection even of the previous avant-gardes (futurism, Cubism).
-Idea of Primitivism, of spontaneous artwork creation.
The Dadaist Vitalism passes through the vindication of nihilism, of systematic doubt: "everything is dada - Desconfiad Dada". The dada artist opts for madness, mockery, humor, Exhibitionism, even cultural terrorism as a game. Opposition to the classical notions of taste and artistic production.
-Integration of the artist in the surrounding world
For this purpose they exhibited frequently their ideas through manifestos and magazines, stressing aspects of denunciation of the war, of capitalism, of bourgeois ideas, everything for them is an outdated world.
-Importance of language in the collective experience of the creator.
Language as a natural force of man, language as a weapon of provocation. From that perspective the poetry cannot exist for the pleasure but for the provocation and aggression. The technique of Tzara embodied in its text to make a Dadaist poem is well illustrative of that attitude.

Sources: Definition of Dadaism


Definition and what is Dadaism


Dada appears in the neutral Switzerland in 1916, where a group of writers, poets and young artists had converged in Zurich. Founded by the playwright and actor Hugo Ball (1880-1927), it was officially presented at the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub and meeting point of Dadaist activities. Apparently the name was chosen at random by undiccionario Franco-German writer Huelsenbeck and its meaning is "children's horse".
The emergence of this artistic movement has to do with the rebellion arose against traditional values as a consequence of the first world war and the effects arising from the crisis of faith, intellectual and moral questions that were affected because of the horrors of war.
Dada spanned several languages, mainly, literature, the fine arts and performances (representations). It was a heterogeneous movement, in which Ball believed that the conventional language of poetry, such as the human figure in the painting, was an old-fashioned form of expression. For that reason, he introduced the abstract poetry consisting of made-up words that, for its effect, are supported by the sound and the rhythm.
The use of the principle of random can be observed in several poets and artists of the era, who argued that such works were, like nature, "ordered according to the laws of chance".
In 1917 was created the given Club, of a political nature, which took a direction of Communist trend. The influence of Cubist collage can be captured in the process of montage of the dadaists. In 1920 a Dadaist group in Paris with a manifesto is presented to the public.
Shows and demonstrations of noisy attracted large numbers of people, but after 1920, this movement was losing strength and disappears almost entirely as a result of which the Breton writer is separated from the Group and created what would later be known as "surrealism".

Sources: Dadaism concept


Definition and etymology of Dadaism


Dadaism is a cultural movement that emerged in 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich (Switzerland). It was proposed by Hugo Ball, writer of the first Dada texts; Subsequently, joined the Romanian Tristan Tzara who would become the emblem of Dadaism. A key feature of the Dada is the opposition to the concept of reason instituted by positivism. Dadaism was characterized by rebelling against the literary and artistic conventions, and especially by mocking the bourgeois artist and his art. Its activity extends to variety of artistic manifestations, from poetry to the esculturapasando by painting or music.
For members of the Dada, this was a modus vivendi that did this to another through gestures and Dadaist acts: actions that aimed to provoke through the expression of the Dadaist denial. To question and challenge the artistic and literary canon, Dada creates a kind of anti-art, it is a provocation opened to the established order.
Dada was an artistic movement emerged first in Europe and later in the United States. It was created in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich (Switzerland) between 1916 and 1922 with Hugo Ball as founder, when a series of artists of different nationalities were found as refugees in that city during the first world war. It was later adopted by Tristan Tzara, who became the figure most representative of Dadaism. Dada arose from the disenchantment felt by those artists living in Europe in the late period of world war I and, later, the attitude of rebellion toward the slackness and lack of social interest characteristic of the artists of the interwar period.
Well-known artists of this movement were Tristan Tzara and Marcel Jank of Romania, French Jean Arp and the Germans Hugo Ball, Hans Richter and Richard Huelsenbeck. After several informal meetings in different cafes, they began to give shape to the idea of creating an international cabaret. The first celebration took place on 5 February 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire, and consisted of a variety show with French and German songs, Russian music, black music and art exhibitions. In the same year published a pamphlet entitled Cabaret Voltaire, which contained contributions from Guillaume Apollinaire, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Vasili Kandinski; on the cover featured a drawing of Jean Arp. The Dada Gallery was opened in 1917.
The expansion of the Dadaist message was intense, broad and had repercussions in all artistic fields. In Germany he found adherents among the intellectuals and artists who supported the Spartacist movement. Ungaretti won the sympathies of writers like Breton, Louis Aragon and the Italian poet in France.
Dada is a succession of words and sounds that is difficult to find logic. It is distinguished by the inclination toward the doubtful, death, the fanciful, and the constant denial. Thus, it seeks to renew the expression through the use of unusual materials or driving planes before not mixable thoughts, which leads to a general tone of defiance or destruction. Dada is also characterized by gestures and provocative demonstrations in which artists sought to destroy all the conventions regarding art, creating, thus, an anti-art. The Dadaist movement is a movement antiartistico, antiliterario and antipoetico because it calls into question the existence of the art, literature and poetry. In fact, by definition, he questions himself Dada.
Dada is presented as a total ideology, as a way of life and as an absolute rejection of any tradition or previous schema. In the background is an anti-humanism, meaning all the above, both philosophical and artistic or literary tradition by humanism. Not by chance in one of his first publications had written the following sentence of Descartes as header: «Don't want to even know if there was another man before me.»
The Dada manifests against the eternal beauty, against the eternity of the principles, against the laws of logic, against the immobility of thought, against the purity of abstract concepts and against the universal in general. Advocates, on the other hand, unbridled freedom of the individual, the spontaneity, the immediate, up-to-date and random, the Chronicle against the timelessness, the contradiction, the 'no' where others say "Yes" and "Yes" where others say 'no'; defend the order against chaos and imperfection against perfection. Therefore, their strictly negative, is also against the other avant-garde and modernism: Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and abstraction, accusing them, ultimately, be substitutes of how much has been destroyed or is about to be. The reason, sense, the construction of the conscious denies Dadaist aesthetic. Its expressive forms are the gesture, the scandal, provocation. For Dada, poetry is in stock and the boundaries between art and life should be abolished.
The permanent contribution of Dadaism to modern art is the continuous questioning of what is art or what is poetry; the awareness that everything is a Convention that can be challenged and that, therefore, there is no fixed and eternal rules that legitimize historical way artistic. Much of what current art has of provocation (as the mixture of genres and subjects own collage comes from Dadaism.
In order to express the rejection of all the social and aesthetic values of the time, and all kinds of coding, the dadaists frequently resorted to the use of deliberately incomprehensible literary and artistic methods, which were supported by the absurdity and irrational. Their theatrical performances and their manifestos sought impact or stop perplexed audiences with the aim that it reconsider the established aesthetic values. To do this using new materials such as scrap found in the street, and new methods, such as the inclusion of chance to determine the elements of the works. Kurt Schwitters German writer and painter noted for his collages made of waste paper and other similar materials. The French artist Marcel Duchamp exhibited as works of art current commercial products--a bottle dryer and a urinal--which he called Ready-Mades.
In poetry Dadaism opens the field for the advent of surrealism and helps create a free poetic language and without limits. To understand what is the aesthetic Dadaist poetry world nothing better than collecting the tips that Tzara proposes to make a Dadaist poem. The text was published in the compilation seven dada manifestos, «Dada manifesto on the weak and the bitter love», VIII (1924).

Pick up a newspaper
Take a pair of scissors
Choose an article of the length that has to give your poem in the newspaper
Trim the article
Then trim with care each of the words that form the article and put them in a bag
Gently shake
Now pull each clip one after the other
Copy conscientiously
in the order in which are out of the bag
The poem will resemble you
And you are a writer infinitely original and a spellbinding, though misunderstood of the vulgar sensibility.
Dada left as legacy magazines and the manifesto, which are the best proof of its proposals. But, by definition, not a work exists dada. Typical of Dada evenings were dada performed in cabarets or art galleries where Photomontages mingled with isolated phrases, words, banners, spontaneous recitals and a continuous provocation ceremonial.
Although the dadaists used revolutionary techniques, their ideas against the rules were based on a profound belief, derived from the romantic tradition, in the intrinsic goodness of humanity when it has not been corrupted by society.

Origin of the name 'dada'

Although the discussion on the origin and meaning of the word dada are comprehensive, there is no legitimate knowledge about what it means. Explanations of the dadaists themselves vary so much that it is impossible to draw one and call it correct. Hans Arp, Member of the group in 1921, States the following in a movement magazine:
I declare that Tristan Tzara found the word 'dada' on February 8, 1916 to six in the afternoon. [...] I am convinced that this word is of no importance and that only the morons can be interested in the data. What us interested is the Dadaist spirit, and all of us were Dadaists before the existence of Dadaism.

It says Tristan Tzara took a dictionary, put it on top of your desk and wanting to look up a Word opened the dictionary on a page and sought the most rare and unknown word, and found dada, meaning 'wooden horse' in French.
The same Tzara offered various explanations about the word, all pointing to the meaninglessness of the same and, notwithstanding, confusing. These include, in the Dada manifesto of 1918, as follows:
Dada means nothing. If someone considers it futile, if someone does not want to waste your time with a word that means nothing [...] We know from newspapers that the black kru called dada to the tail of the sacred cow. The cube and the mother in some region of Italy are called dada. A horse of wood in French, the Mothership, the double assertion in Russian and Romanian: dada.

Everything points that the dadaists wanted to show its public that the word dada, the name of his movement, was unimportant; What mattered was the art, the creation arising from his grouping.

Sources: Dadaism concept


Concept and meaning of Dadaism


Dada was an artistic trend that arose in Zurich (Switzerland) in 1916. This avant-garde spread throughout Europe and came to United States. I was against art, the codes and values of his time, the first world war and established systems. He was influential in graphic art, in music, in poetry. He presented himself as an ideology or a way of life.

Its founder was Tristan Tzara. One of the theories of the name Dada, is that it means stammering or first sound a child says, and arose when they were seeking a stage name to one of the singers in a dictionary. They immediately identified this name with the new style that sought to start from scratch, breaking all schemes followed previously. There are many other assumptions about the name of this movement, "the general concept that attempted to propagate was simply it meant nothing and was chosen at random, some say that looking at a dictionary with a knife, others say that it was the only thing that was understood by the Russians, da da (if if)". (Contribution of Valentina, thank you).
They were looking for impact and leave perplexed the public (that reacted throwing things and insulting them). The Dada Gallery was opened in 1917 and Tristán Tzara began its publication. Dada is reported through journals, his manifesto and in meetings in cabarets or art galleries.

The Dada movement, in its content or theme, was characterized by:
-Continuous protest against the conventions of his time.
-Attitude of total mockery and humor. They are based on the absurd and devoid of value.
-Media ironico-satiricos, through gesture, scandal, provocation.
-Poetry is illogical or difficult to understand (the Dadaist poem usually a succession of words and sounds).
-Inclination toward the doubtful, rebellion, destruction, terrorism, death and nihilism, the fanciful, etc.
-Promotion by change, freedom of the individual, the spontaneity, the immediate, randomness, contradiction, chaos, the imperfect, intuition.
-Demonstrations against beauty, eternity, laws, the immobility of the thought, the purity of abstract concepts, the universal, reason, sense, the construction of the conscious.
-Negative and against modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and abstractionism.
-They want to return to childhood.
-Consider most important to the creative act that created product.
In terms of the graph was characterized by:
-Renewal of expression through the use of unusual materials.
-Assembly of fragments and tombstone daily by presenting them as art objects.
-Collage of different materials (papers, labels, leaflets, journals, fabrics, Woods, etc.).
-Photomontage with isolated phrases, words, banners, spontaneous recitals and provocation.

The message given was widely disseminated, the more well-known artists were: Tristan Tzara and Marcel Jank of Romania, French Jean Arp and the Germans Hugo Ball, Hans Richter and Richard Huelsenbeck. It had repercussions in all artistic fields. In Germany he found followers among intellectuals and artists who supported the movement. Ungaretti was writers such as Breton, Louis Aragon and the Italian poet in France.
In poetry he opened the field to surrealism, creating a language without boundaries. Councils of Tzara described as he is a dada poem: trim the words of an article in a newspaper, put them in a bag to mix them and copy the words as you go out of the bag. In the case of paint, discarded forms and traditional techniques, rejecting the currents of the moment. Prevailed the incomprehensible images, where stood the collages of debris and clippings from newspapers. In sculpture the Ready-Mades from Marchel Duchamp French prevailed.
In Europe declined in 1920 to finish in 1922. Halfway through the 1950s it was revived in New York. The given movement caused the road that come into existence other flows, such as surrealism and Pop art.

Sources: Dadaism concept