Dada, Surrealism and After
Contributions:
Appropriation - basically stealing, reuse in new context to question political, social, or artistic issues
Assemblage/construction - found objects, influenced by Picasso and technology
Conceptual Art - ephemeral manifestations
Chance - began with Dadaists who wanted freedom from social and artistic traditions.
Dada Artists:
Hugo Ball - recites meaningless sound poem, Karawane 1916, dressed in cubist costume, industrial
influence.
Marcel Duchamp - made fun of the foundations of art. L.H.O.O.Q. 1919.
Jean Arp - Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance 1916-17, took artistic
control out of the equation.
Kurt Schwitters - Merz 1919, subtle political statements influenced by WWI in collage form.
This movement began as a revolt against the atrocities of WWI in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916 when Hugo Ball opened Cabaret Voltaire. It involved protest against the war, society, old world social order, and art itself. Hitler was starting a war that seemed crazy to German artists and they fled to Zurich. This was a time of intense uncertainty. They didn't know when they could go home so they entertained themselves at the Cabaret Voltaire. As years passed, they began to spread across Europe. In Berlin in 1919 Dada artists became more political. In Paris 1924 there was emphasis on poetry and sound language, which later morphed into surrealism.
Up to Leonardo da Vince, artists where workman and focused on beauty for the pleasure of looking. After WWI, artists were thinkers and wanted to make political and social statements about the contemporary world. They were anti-everything. Artists during this movement wanted to throw out the old social orders and create everything anew. In 1916 collage began when mass printing capabilities advanced which made magazines and newspapers readily available to the public. It did not exist anywhere prior to 1916.
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