Thoughts on Dada Movement

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Dada or Dadaism, is quite a topic to be discussed especially in an art or design class. In all honesty, the notion and concepts surrounding the Dada movement are still, by far, one of the most interesting art-related topics for me because it questions the way we are being introduced to art, beauty, society, and even power itself. It is also a tool not just to show the critiques of their time; I mean, the first world war, but the works linked to Dada also show the progression of the Western art scene into modernity. The movement can also be considered a part of the many art movements during the Avant-garde period.


To answer the question of whether Dada is an art or a design movement, let us define the term first - for us to have a better understanding of the subject matter. According to the MoMA Learning website, Dada emerged amid the brutality of World War I (1914–18)—a conflict that claimed the lives of eight million military personnel and an estimated equal number of civilians. This unprecedented loss of human life was a result of trench warfare and technological advances in weaponry, communications, and transportation systems.[1] Thinking more about it, Dada is a school of thought, a philosophy, a concept, that challenges our systems, especially in connection to power dynamics. We can also think of it as a response to the turmoils of the Western world during the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Dada is also considered as an ‘assault’ on the traditional definition of art because this movement defies what is acceptable and recognizable to the people or patrons during that era. It has also influenced the world and other art and design movements in a very huge way despite its being peculiar in a way, the movement started out small; their ideas emerged from these small groups of artists and poets in Switzerland. I would also like to cite: “For Dada artists, the aesthetic of their work was considered secondary to the ideas it conveyed. “For us, art is not an end in itself,” wrote Dada poet Hugo Ball, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.” Dadaists both embraced and critiqued modernity, imbuing their works with references to the technologies, newspapers, films, and advertisements that increasingly defined contemporary life.”[2] This citation shows how the Dada artist works and think, it has been stated that for them, it is the idea that matters most over the aesthetic value of their works, in my understanding, it is more like conceptual art in a way - it is the ideas that make up the whole narrative, they are already exploring the potentials of their art by breaking away from the conventions. Wild as it may seem, perhaps, these artists are just longing for something new, something greater, or even something enchantingly peculiar.

 

In the readings, there are also many mentions about Dada being provocative and experimental, and I would like to cite an article featuring Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943). She is an artist, educator, multidisciplinary creator, editor, abstractionist, and participated in the Dada movement. For Sophie Taeuber-Arp, abstraction was always connected to everyday lived reality in which objects were to be used and manipulated, spaces to be moved about in, and artworks to be looked at and experienced. Her creations responded to their time and place of making, in keeping with Taeuber-Arp’s expressed ambition to make “living things” in “a new style that is fitting for us.” Her fluid movement between genres, disciplines, and creative roles makes her especially relevant for contemporary artists, while her work proposes a more open-ended and inclusive way of thinking about the history of modern art.[3] I can easily connect to her art because I myself is an abstract artist as well. In this citation, the author explained the artist's point of view regarding abstraction; her art. She connected her work in a way that it seems like the things around her, the inanimate ones, are coming to life because of her exploration of spaces, places, and time in her creations. I also believe that her notion of abstraction can also be explained through the lens of the Dada movement; during that time, it is new, it is strange, and it differs from conventional art, just like what I’ve mentioned earlier in this paper in relation to my learnings in the Dada concepts. Sophie Taeuber joined the "Schweizer Werkbund". By this time she was living in Zurich. She and Hans Arp met for the first time in November 1915 during the exhibition "Modern Tapestries, embroidery, paintings, and Drawings" at Galerie Tanner, in which Arp exhibited works together with Otto van Rees and Adya van Rees-Dutilh. Sometime later – probably in spring 1917 – they fell in love.[4] In one of the readings, it is also cited that Sophie Taeuber is already there in the early days of Dada, in fact, she is one of the pioneers, so to speak, together with her husband, Hans Arp. This union between two great minds at that time gives birth to the movement, and it is not only focused on the disciplines of visual arts because they also write poems, do text collages, and many more. Their creativity seems to be boundless, partly due to their experimentation, together with the emerging appreciation and exploration of the many avant-garde movements. I would also like to think that this era is a great time to engage internationally, especially in the world of art, in fact, they also met Wassily Kandinsky: During this time Arp was in close contact with the "Blauer Reiter" in Munich through Wassily Kandinsky. He exhibited his works with the group and contributed to the almanac of the same name.[5] Kandinsky is also a proponent of the later Bauhaus movement, he is also an artist and an abstractionist.


To wrap up my explanation, Dada, for me, is an art movement that influences design. I always see design as something that solves problems or communicates things (from a graphic designer’s perspective) and I believe that Dada is the catalyst of innovation in producing their unique, yet, astonishing aesthetics. It is art because it provokes something, it expresses their ideas, and it is design because it answers or addresses the issues and problems that is existing during their time.


[1] “World War I and Dada”, MoMA Learning, Accessed Dec. 4, 2021, MoMA | Dada

[2] Ibid.

[3]  “Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction”, MoMA Learning, Accessed Dec. 4, 2021, MoMA | Dada

[4] “HANS ARP AND SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP”, Art Museum, Accessed December 4, 2021, The Arps / Arp Museum Rolandseck

[5] Ibid

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