DADA: Whimsical Absurdity

What is art? Who gets to decide? And why? Born as the absurdist lovechild of World War I, Dadaism was a literary and artistic movement that turned the world on its head. Dadaists possessed an anti-society philosophical backbone, mocking everything from organized religion to war to politics to art itself. In fact, they were so anti that they sought to create “anti-art”, experimenting with new modes of expression from performance art to nudity to… urinals. With radical leftist ideologies and an aptitude for societal upheaval, Dadaists were free thinkers with a whimsical absurdity that left the art world bleeding. Once healed, it was never again the same. Follow us on Instagram! Listen on Spotify! Chronological sources: Rugh, Thomas F. “Emmy Hennings and the Emergence of Zurich Dada.” Woman’s Art Journal 2, no. 1 (1981): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.2307/1357892. Chalupecký, Jindřich, and Paul Wilson. “Marcel Duchamp: A Re-Evaluation.” Artibus et Historiae 6, no. 11 (1985): 125–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/1483262. Spector, Jack J. “The Avant-Garde Object: Form and Fetish between World War I and World War II.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 12 (1986): 125–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166757. Chadwick, Whitney. “Fetishizing Fashion/Fetishizing Culture: Man Ray’s ‘Noire et Blanche.’” Oxford Art Journal 18, no. 2 (1995): 3–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360549. Gammel, Irene. “Breaking the Bonds of Discretion: Baroness Elsa and the Female Sexual Confession.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 14, no. 1 (1995): 149–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/464252. Seamon, Roger. “The Conceptual Dimension in Art and the Modern Theory of Artistic Value.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59, no. 2 (2001): 139–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/432220. Lappin, Linda. “Dada Queen in the Bad Boys’ Club: Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven.” Southwest Review 89, no. 2/3 (2004): 307–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43472537. Trachtman, Paul. “A Brief History of Dada”, in Smithsonian Magazine, May 2006: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dada-115169154/ Hubregtse, Menno. “Robert J. Coady’s ‘The Soil’ and Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’: Taste, Nationalism, Capitalism, and New York Dada.” RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review 34, no. 2 (2009): 28–42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630803. Cloonan, William. “Expressing the Inexpressible: World War I and the Challenge to Art.” The French Review 87, no. 4 (2014): 15–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24549273. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Marcel Duchamp, Fountain," in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed December 11, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/marcel-duchamp-fountain/. Dr. Stephanie Chadwick, "Introduction to Dada," in Smarthistory, September 4, 2017, accessed November 30, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-dada/. “What is Dadaism? Some Explanations and Definitions”, North Carolina Museum of Art, 2019: https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/wp-content/kuploads/2019/01/What-is-Dadaism_0.pdf Hustvedt, Siri. “A woman in the men's room: when will the art world recognise the real artist behind Duchamp's Fountain?”, in The Guardian, 29 Mar 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/29/marcel-duchamp-fountain-women-art-history Dr. Karen Barber, "Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany ," in Smarthistory, August 18, 2020, accessed December 11, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/hannah-hoch-cut-kitchen-knife-dada-weimar-beer-belly-germany/.