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71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page C
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page D
The beginnings of dada
were not the beginnings of an art,
but of a disgust.
1
TRISTAN TZARA
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Like the edgiest rock and hip-hop, Dada was young,
smart, crude, angry, and outrageous. Dadaists, an interna-
tional hodgepodge of mostly twenty-something artists
and writers, were dismayed by the stupidity and horror of
World War I. The conflict was unprecedented in human
history because of its scale and its terrifying new weaponry.
On average almost 900 Frenchmen and 1,300 Germans
died every day between the outbreak of war in August 1914
and the armistice that ended it in November 1918. All
told, nearly ten million people were killed.
For the dadaists, World War I discredited the notion
of a civilized European society. As dadaist Hugo Ball noted,
the war proved that this world of systems has gone to
pieces. For Ball and his contemporaries, the pillars of
societylaw, culture, faith, language, economy, educa-
tion, and the roles assigned to men and womenhad
failed to prevent the war and its unparalleled destruction.
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71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 1
2
Dada counterattacked with an insurrection against every-
thing in society that was pompous and conventional
everything that was part of the rational mindset that had
led to the war [fig. 1].
Dadas chosen weapon was art, but it was art the likes
of which the world had never seen. Dadaists were repulsed
by self-styled enlightened societies that fawned over pretty
paintings while dispatching youths by the millions to their
deaths. They wanted art to be the equivalent of a slap in the
face that compelled people to confront lifes ugly realities
and goaded them to think about the forces, structures, and
clichs in society that gave rise to them.
Dada reimagined what art could and should be in an
age reeling from the worlds first industrial-sized slaughter
and the onslaught of modern mass media that it triggered,
which included war propaganda posters, films, and the
photo-illustrated press [fig. 2].
Dada was not a particular style of making pictures,
like impressionism. Rather, dadaists called into question
the idea of art as a picture of the world. They invented
a set of new approaches to art-makingstrategies for
being an artist in the modern world. Scorning
traditional painting and sculpture, dadaists created new
categories of art objects, embraced new technologies, and
redefined ideas about artistic creativity. Sometimes this
meant incorporating new materials into the art. And some-
times it meant stepping outside of object-making to
connect art directly to the public, which the dadaists did
by staging outlandish performances, putting out in-your-
face journals and manifestos, and manipulating the
popular press for subversive purposes.
Dada not only pushed the boundaries of art and
society, it questioned their very forms. In the face of daily
routine, civil propriety, and bourgeois self-satisfaction,
Dada championed spontaneity, absurdity, and free will.
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Stretcher bearers transporting a
wounded soldier under enemy fire.
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 2
Every product of disgust capable
of becoming a negation of the
family is Dada; a protest with
the fists of its whole being
engaged in destructive action:
Dada; knowledge of all the
means rejected up until now by
the shamefaced sex of com-
fortable compromise and good
manners: Dada; abolition of
logic, which is the dance of those
impotent to create: Dada; of
every social hierarchy and equa-
tion set up for the sake of val-
ues by our valets: Dada; every
object, all objects, sentiments,
obscurities, apparitions, and
the precise clash of parallel lines
are weapons for the fight: Dada;
abolition of memory: Dada;
abolition of archaeology: Dada;
abolition of prophets: Dada;
abolition of the future: Dada;
absolute and unquestionable
faith in every god that is the
immediate product of spontane-
ity: Dada; elegant and unpreju-
diced leap from a harmony to
the other sphere; trajectory of a
word tossed like a screeching
phonograph record; to respect
all individuals in their folly of the
moment: whether it be serious,
fearful, timid, ardent, vigorous,
determined, enthusiastic; to
divest ones church of every use-
less cumbersome accessory; to
spit out disagreeable or amorous
ideas like a luminous water-
fall, or coddle themwith the
extreme satisfaction that it
doesnt matter in the leastwith
the same intensity in the thicket
of ones soulpure of insects
for blood well-born, and gilded
with bodies of archangels.
Freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a
roaring of tense colors, and
interlacing of opposites and of
all contradictions, grotesques,
inconsistencies: LIFE.
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto,
Published in the journal Dada,
no. 3, 1918
3
Dada journals were the lifeblood
of the movement, enabling
dadaists to exchange ideas and
images among themselves and
to convey them to the public,
across the world [fig. 3]. Dada
journals sprang up in all Dada
centers, and many are famed
for their innovative typography
and layout. Some journals were
short-livedoften because
government authorities banned
them shortly after learning of
their subversive contentbut
many reappeared soon after
with different formats and new
names. At right, a sample of
Dada rant:
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DADA JOURNALS

71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 3

4
ART NEEDS
DADA AND THE ANTI-MASTERPIECE
Dada disowned the idea of the masterpiecea great,
singular oil painting, like the Mona Lisa, made by a skilled
genius. Dadaists found oil painting pretentious, and they
ridiculed art historys elite, from Leonardo da Vinci to Paul
Czanne [fig. 4]. Against the backdrop of the war, dadaists
found this entire tradition of art pompous and bankrupt.
And because they were skeptical about human character
and the cult of genius, they advocated, instead, imper-
sonal art that did not rely on artistic skill and did not
reflect individual personality.
In Zurich, Hans Arp and his companion Sophie
Taeuber, a textile designer and professor, launched a quiet
time bomb by challenging the distinction between
fine and applied art. Applied art, which usually
refers to the design or decoration of functional objects
and was often considered the domain of womenwas
viewed as a lesser form of art. But Taeuber and Arp framed
embroideries and hung them on the walls like paintings.
They also jointly made a series of abstract geometric duo-
collages [fig. 5] that had roots in Taeubers textile designs.
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Marcel Duchamps graffiti-like
defacement of a Mona Lisa repro-
duction is the most famous of
Dadas many attacks against the
traditions of high art. In French,
the letters LHOOQ sound like
the French phrase, which in loose
translation would be, Shes hot.
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71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 4
5
AN OPERATION.
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Arp experimented with auto-
matic drawings inspired by nat-
ural forms such as roots and
twigs. Rather than copying what
he saw directly, he would give
free rein to his brush and imagi-
nation. Working quickly, he
deliberately tried not to control
the drawing he was creating,
making its final form subject to
subconscious forces and chance.

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The duo-collages strict grid format constrained
artistic judgment, and the uniformly sized rectangles
were made with a paper cutter rather than scissors to elimi-
nate any trace of the artists personal touch. Arp addressed
similar issues with his wood reliefs, like Plant Hammer,
c. 1917 [fig. 6]. The reliefs were based on quickly made
automatic drawings [fig. 7] in which Arp tried to avoid
conscious control. He then hired a carpenter to cut the
shapes out of wood, removing the artist altogether from
a crucial step of creating the works (which Arp then assem-
bled and painted). The resulting reliefs also violate
traditional artistic boundaries because they are
neither painting nor sculpture.
DNN: DADA NEWS NETWORK
Photo-filled newspapers and magazines, newsreels and
commercial films, radio broadcasts, and propaganda
and advertising posters first bombarded modern citizens
during and after the war [fig. 8]. Dada parodied this
media overload by planting fake news stories (includ-
ing one of a duel between two Dada artists); issuing Dada
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 5
6
TAKE DADA
SERIOUSLY,
ITS
WORTH IT!
EVERYBODY
CAN DADA
DILETTANTES,
RISE UP
AGAINST ART
DADA IS
POLITICAL

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This Dada-financed publicity
photograph of the notorious First
International Dada Fair, which
was held in a Berlin bookstore,
features many artists and works
shown in the National Gallerys
2006 exhibition.
George Grosz, Gallery of German
Manly Beauty, Prize Question:
Who is the Most Beautiful? 1919.
Fan-shaped photomontage
attached to Otto Dixs montage
painting, War Cripples (45% Fit
for Service). See fig. 11.
John Heartfield and Rudolf
Schlichter, Prussian Archangel,
2004 (reconstruction of lost
1920 original), mixed media.
Neue Galerie New York
George Grosz and John Heartfield,
The Middle-Class Philistine Heart-
field Gone Wild (Electro-Mechanical
Tatlin Sculpture), 1988 (reconstruc-
tion of 1920 original), mixed media.
Berlinische Galerie-Landesmuseum
fr Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und
Architektur
DADA FAI R
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71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 6
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g. 10
In addition to newspapers, Dix
used several other collage mate-
rials in this work. The blue uni-
form of the figure at the right is
made of woven paper used for
cloth during a shortage in post-
war Germany. The mechanical
jaw of the figure at the right
is made of silver paper used to
line cigarette packets. (Dix
inscribed the paper lower jaw
prosthesis brand Dix and
used a picture of himself as a
logo.) Real playing cards
are used.
J
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g. 11
This four-page periodical ridi-
culed the German socialist
governments cooperation with
the military in violently sup-
pressing the workers movement.
Dadaists marched through
Berlins working-class districts
and distributed the periodical
to the accompaniment of a brass
band playing patriotic military
songs before German police
stopped the procession and con-
fiscated the remaining copies.
The title and the top photo-
montage mock the governments
promise of future plenty. The
top of the fan pictures German
President Ebert and five mem-
bers of his administration, while
the lower portion features mili-
tary leaders.
7
tabloids filled with Dada ads (for example, Neue Jugend, or
New Youth); making films with absurd plots (Ghosts Before
Breakfast); and plastering Dada exhibitions with slogans
that mimicked wartime propaganda, as at the First Inter-
national Dada Fair in Berlin [fig. 9].
Dadaists sometimes incorporated the press
directly into their works, giving them an automatic
tie to reality. Otto Dix, for instance, inserted newspaper
front pages into his brutal satire of German militarism,
the Skat Players, 1920 [fig. 10], in which grossly disfigured
and limbless war veterans play cards in a caf. The work
also violated traditional artistic categories by including
collage elements in an oil painting.
Dada photomontage, one of the movements
most innovative assaults on traditional art, often used press
images as source material. Substituting scissors and glue
for brushes and paint, and calling themselves monteurs,
or mechanics, rather than artists, Berlin dadaists weeded
through illustrated magazines and newspapers, cut out
images or fragments of images, and reassembled them to
make new art products. Their remix works often included
press images of leading politicians in photomontages,
which they would then reproduce in Dada periodicals
accompanied by satirical text. The goal: to take back con-
trol of the media, which seemed increasingly to control
them and society at large. In a front-page photomontage
in Everyone His Own Soccerball, 1919 [fig. 11], banned the
day it went on sale, George Grosz lampooned members
of Germanys oppressive postwar government, arranging
their portraits in a womans fan under a beauty pageant
competition called: Who is the Most Beautiful?
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 7
8
R
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g. 12
Dada is printed across a
world map.
The photo of a city street is
labeled both Dada and 391,
a Dada journal.
The artist includes a photo of
himself as a gloved sophisticate.
Dada is written on the soccer-
ball, a reference to Everyone
His Own Soccerball.
Richard Huelsenbeck, author
of the first Berlin Dada mani-
festo, appears to utter the
words subtler natural forces.
A Bourgeois Precision Brain is full
of humorous self-aggrandizing
Dada references, beginning with
the revolutionary-sounding slo-
gan, Dada siegt (Dada Triumphs).
DADA, INC.
The dadaists were shameless self-promoters, but
in promoting themselves they were also parodying
the new phenomenon of modern advertising
and marketing. The word Dada was vital to this
effort. Chosen from a French-German dictionary, it was
short, rhythmic, and while sounding almost absurdly
childlike, also had meanings in several European lan-
guages (including hobby horse in French and yes, yes
in Romanian).
Dadaists treated Dada like a brand name,
as if it were a commercial product with a logo. They often
employed eye-catching typography to help their cause,
emblazoning the Dada name across Dada journals, Dada his-
tories, Dada manifestos, Dada letterhead, and posters for
Dada performances. The word Dada was included in many
Dada artworks, such as Raoul Hausmanns photomontage

B
E
R
L
I
N
A Bourgeois Precision Brain Incites a World Movement, 1920 [fig. 12],
where the movements global reach is humorously suggested
by the word overlaid atop a world map and a soccer ball.
Variations of the word were also adopted as a pseudonym or
alter ego: Johannes Baader called himself Oberdada; Max
Ernst, dadamax; and Raoul Hausmann, dadasopher.
And Francis Picabia used it to designate new categories of
anti-art, labeling his work and work by others,Dada
Picture and Dada Drawing.
Dadas branding succeeded more than that of
many commercial products. Endlessly repeated, Dada
quickly penetrated the worlds vocabulary and con-
sciousness, even if its product intellectual anarchy
was not always embraced.

71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 8

9
EVERYTHING HAD BROKEN DOWN IN ANY
CASE AND NEW THINGS HAD TO BE MADE
OUT OF FRAGMENTS: AND THIS WAS MERZ.
KURT SCHWITTERS
K
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g. 13
railroad timetable extract
swatch of cloth with
loose threads
torn pieces of paper
(ragged edges)
part of a page that is
printed in three languages
DADA PAPER PUSHERS
Dada introduced a simple but revolutionary idea that has
influenced art ever since: that art might be assembled from
the stuff of modern life itself. With collage (and the closely
related assemblage, which is like collage with objects),
the dadaists could use the new staples of culturesuch as
advertisements, newspapers, art reproductionsto represent
the chaos and fragmentation of contemporary life. Collage
also fundamentally challenged the idea that an artwork
should be a pure product of craftsmanship or require special-
ized technical training. Instead, collage is assembled, rather
than created, by manipulating already existing materials.
Dada collage took many forms and had many
meanings. The grid-based duo-collage by Taeuber and Arp,
discussed earlier, suggested machinelike precision and
impersonality. The collages of Kurt Schwitters, by contrast,
were obviously made by hand and functioned like a chaotic

H
A
N
N
O
V
E
R
personal diary. Calling his creations Merz, from the
German word Kommerz (commerce), Schwitters works are
an accumulation and sampling of elements that he found
in modern life. In his delicate and colorful Mz 460 Two
Underdrawers, 1921 [fig. 13], Schwitters layered fragments of
colored paper, paper printed with words, and fabric. Some
of the papers are torn by hand and appear ragged, while
others have straight edges. The words on the advertising or
packaging papers are almost always broken up, frustrating
a viewers attempt to create a story from the collaged ele-
ments. Yet there is something undeniably optimistic about
Schwitters collages, even if they embody a fragmented world
overrun with trash. For Schwitters was literally picking up
the pieces of his defeated, war-ravaged country and, from
these fragments, assembling a new kind of art for the future.
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 9
10
P
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g. 15
The titles of Max Ernsts works
are often as enigmatic as the
works themselves. He described
the way he arrived at titles
for the overpainted works as
a matter of interpreting the
hallucination in a few words or
sentences. The full title of
this work is 1 Copper Sheet 1 Zinc
Sheet 1 Rubber Cloth 2 Calipers
1 Drainpipe Telescope 1 Pipe Man.
C
O
L
O
G
N
E
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 10
DADA REVERSE-COLLAGES
Sometimes what looks like a Dada collage is not a collage
at all, because it did not involve literally cutting and stick-
ing. Max Ernst made brilliant collages and photomontages,
but he also achieved similar effects through overpainting,
a reverse method also utilizing found print materials.
Taking an existing illustration, Ernst would paint much of
it out and then elaborate on what was left changing its
meaning in the process. In 1 Copper Sheet 1 Zinc Sheet 1
Rubber Cloth, c. 1920, Ernst altered a catalogue page show-
ing scientific teaching aids, constructing from it two
bizarre machine beings [figs. 14, 15]. Ernsts work is so
unsettling because he discovers within a given context
here, a printed cataloguesomething completely unex-
pected, and from it creates a new reality based on a dis-
turbing vision of modernity. By animating scientific instru-
ments, Ernst suggests that an irrational, unconscious
world may be lurking behind the rational, knowable world
that is the object of scientific study.
DADA MANUFACTURING
Dadaists questioned almost every step of the art-making
process, especially in terms of materials and technique.
Dadaists found one model particularly attractive for
mocking the art-making tradition: industrial
manufacturing. Manufacturing was the quintessential
11
F
r
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g. 16
P
A
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I
S
dehumanizing endeavor of the modern age, and it was closely
tied to the destructiveness of the war. Associated with repeti-
tion, utility, mass production, and consumerism, industrial
manufacturing was the antithesis of traditional fine art and
thus a perfect weapon for Dada.
Several dadaists turned to industrial techniques
to make impersonal works. Man Ray, for instance, used
airbrusha precise form of spray painting employed for
commercial art to create compositions he called aero-
graphs. Francis Picabia, meanwhile, ironically elevated
mechanical drawingthe dry and impersonal visual lan-
guage of industry to the status of fine art. Picabias
absurd machine portraits, such as Child Carburetor, c. 1919
[fig. 16], suggest the uneasy relationship between people
and machines in the modern era. With parts that look decid-
edly male and female, they can also be seen as humorous
metaphors for human sexuality.
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:27 AM Page 11
Marcel Duchamp went further still, buying common
industrially manufactured objects and simply proclaiming them
to be readymade artworks. Duchamp thought art
should be about ideas rather than beautiful objects. By moving
ordinary objects from the world of industry to the world of art,
he raised questions about how arts meaning relates to its con-
textas when he submitted Fountain, 1917 [fig. 17], a urinal he
signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, to an open New York art
exhibition, knowing it would be loudly rejected because it was
manufactured and crude. He also often gave the readymades
humorously aggressive titles, like a snow shovel that he called
In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1915 [fig. 18]. Such ironic titles call
attention to the way language affects the viewers experience of
art. With his simple but radical readymades, Duchamp funda-
mentally challenged established ideas about what
art is, what an artist is, and who gets to decide.
12
M
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g. 17
The Society of Independent
Artists explained their rejection
of Fountain in the attention-
grabbing and categorical terms
that Duchamp expected: The
Fountain may be a very useful
object in its place, but its place
is not an art exhibition and it is,
by no definition, a work of art.
Purchased at a hardware
store on Columbus Avenue,
New York City
DADA MENACE
Dada was widely perceived as being frankly and openly
an expression of contempt for the public, as the photog-
rapher Edward Steichen put it. Dada did deliberately
antagonize its audiences. Eliciting a response
whether outrage or laughter was a purposeful strategy
to wake people up and get them to look critically at the world
around them. To enter a Dada exhibition in Cologne,
Germany, for instance, visitors had to pass through a public
toilet and were greeted by a girl in a communion dress
reciting obscene poems.
The need to confront the public directly led dadaists
to create art that took the form of performances and
events, an entirely new and influential conception of art.
Some Dada performances took place on the streets:
the week after the war ended, police hauled away Johannes
N
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g. 18
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 12
Baader for interrupting a mass in a Berlin cathedral to
lecture the congregation on its lack of true faith.
In more conventional performance venues, such
as theaters, dadaists eagerly incited primed audiences
by reading manifestos that insulted them, playing
anti-symphonies on pot lids, or reciting poems without
words (which sometimes led to performance-ending
clashes between dadaists and the public). Many Dada
performances even featured staged violence, such as
faked shootings, calculated to remind the civilian popu-
lation of the real violence of the war [fig. 19]. Several
Paris Dada works reflect this aggressive streak, including
Picabias many paintings featuring targets, and Man Rays
ironically titled Gift, 1921 [fig. 20], which the artist
made by gluing tacks to an iron, transforming an item
of household utility into something reminiscent of
a medieval torture instrument.
13
V
i
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w

o
f

t
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9
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.
M
a
r
k

K
e
l
m
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,

N
e
w
Y
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r
k

g. 19
Performances were integral to
Dada, especially in Paris. The
first Dada season, as it came
to be known, featured six group
performances. The season culmi-
nated in the ambitious Festival
Dada, which ended in a brawl,
with the audience hurling eggs,
meat, vegetables, and coins at
the performers.
M
a
n

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,

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c
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h
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t
o

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.
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o
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,

1
9
6
6
g. 20
Gift embodies weaponlike
destruction: ironing with it would
tear a garment to shreds.
DADA WILL GET YOU IF YOU DONT WATCH OUT.
MARGERY REX
P
A
R
I
S
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 13
14 M
a
r
c
e
l

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p

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g. 21
Here, Man Ray and Marcel
Duchamp create art by altering
a manufactured object
a perfume bottle.
The label features a Man Ray
photograph of Duchamp dressed
as a woman, wearing a plumed
hat, make-up, and womans neck-
lace and coat.
Duchamps female persona was
Rrose Slavy. Her initials RS
(the R reversed) are on the label.
New York and Paris indicate
the native cities of the two artists.
N
E
W

Y
O
R
K
BELLE HALEINE
Like so many Dada works, Belle Haleine, 1921, is the prod-
uct of a collaborative effort between friends. Duchamps
belief that art should be about ideas led him to ques-
tion what art is and who decides. Belle Haleine similarly chal-
lenges arts unacknowledged rules. Packaged as a luxury
consumer product (perfume), it calls attention to how art,
too, despite its reputation as a special cultural creation, can
be seen as a mass-produced luxury product like any other,
regularly bought and sold by people with money.
Making Belle Haleine required craftsmanship, but not
the traditional fine art kind; instead, it required making
a mechanical reproduction (Man Rays photograph) and
decorating the label, mostly with commercial lettering
(also by Man Ray). And if Man Ray took the photograph
and made the label, then Duchamps only contribution to
the work was coming up with the idea for it, sitting for
the photograph, and adding his/her signature [fig. 21]
a contribution that challenges traditional ideas of the artist
as a maker, rather than conceiver, of a work of art.
Duchamp was a fierce, if subtle, champion of indi-
vidualism. In Belle Haleine, he questions received
ideas not only about art, but also about identity and
language. By adopting a female alter ego, named Rrose
Slavy, Duchamp humorously challenged a fundamental
tenet of human existence that we all have fixed identities
determined at birth. Duchamp was raising questions
about how gender determines, or is made to determine,
ones role in life. By adopting an artistic female persona,
Duchamp makes us question what is fixed, and why, and
suggests a way to see individuals apart from constricting
labels such as gender, class, or race.
Duchamp found in language, especially puns and
double meanings, a model for contesting whatever
BELLE HALEI NE

71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 14

Like many dadaists, Duchamp
adopted an alter egoa second
personality. Duchamps was
female: he/she signed the accom-
panying perfume boxand
many other works over the next
twenty yearsRrose Slavy.
P
e
a
r

w
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t
h

c
h
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c
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l
a
t
e

i
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n
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h

d
e
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s
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(
d
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l
)
.
g. 22
T
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I
S
T
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T
Z
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o
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w
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t

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f
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f
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o
m
.
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v
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r
y
t
h
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n
g

i
s

i
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c
o
h
e
r
e
n
t
.

seems categorical and certain. When pronounced,

the name Rrose Slavy becomes the French sentence
Eros, cest la vie, which in English translates as Eros (as in
erotic), that is lifesomething with which perfume has
an obvious connection. It becomes impossible to separate
Rrose, the person, from the sayingone is the other, and
vice versa. Similarly, Belle Haleine, which means beauti-
ful breath, is pronounced almost identically with Belle
Hlne, the classic French dessert that features a chocolate-
covered pear [fig. 22].
Duchamps work humorously suggests that con-
vention can be turned upside down or inside out. By
demonstrating that any widely accepted belief is open to
challenge, he carves out a space for individual action
where there often doesnt seem to be any. Like many Dada
works, Belle Haleine packs a big art punch in a small,
untraditional package.
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 15
16
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-
Loringhoven often accessor-
ized with trash and wore a
wastepaper basket as a hat.
German, 1874 1927
Hannah Hch added
the h at the end of her first
name, for symmetry.
German, 1889 1978
Johannes Baaders
calling card read President of
the Earth and Universe.
German, 1875 1955
Max Ernst read Freud.
German, 1891 1976
Emmy Hennings went
to jail for faking draft evaders
passports.
German, 1885 1948
Man Rays gravestone
reads Unconcerned, but not
indifferent.
American, 1890 1976
Kurt Schwitters said
he bribed an army doctor to
evade the draft.
German, 1887 1948
Sophie Taeuber has been
depicted on the 50 franc Swiss
note issued since 1995.
Swiss, 1889 1943
Hans Arp feigned insanity to
avoid service in the German army.
Alsatian, 1886 1966
Tristan Tzara isnt his
real name.
Romanian, 1896 1963
For extended biographies,
go to: www.nga.gov/exhibitions/
2006/dada/cities/index.htm
DADA DOSSI ERS
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 16
17
CREDI TS
Cover CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Runion
des Muses Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY Raoul Hausmann/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New
York/ADAGP, Paris
Inside front cover Poster for
Kleine Dada Soire: Digital image
2005 The Museum of Modern Art,
New York
page 1 British tank, Photo by
Lt. J.W. Brooke
1 Bettmann/CORBIS
2 RV-328843. Collection Roger-
Viollet
3 2005 Board of Trustees,
National Gallery of Art, Washingon,
Photo by Ricardo Blanc
5 2005 Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin 2005 Sophie
Taeuber/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn 2005 Hans Arp/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York/
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo by
Jrge P. Anders, Berlin
7 Digital Image 2005 The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
2005 Hans Arp/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
8 Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [reproduc-
tion number, LC-USZC4-11704]
9 Middle-Class Philistine Estate
of George Grosz/Licensed by VAGA,
New York, NY, 2005 John Heart-
field/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
10 Nationalgalerie. Staatliche
Museen zu BerlinPreussischer
Kulturbesitz
13 Digital Image 2005 The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
2005 Kurt Schwitters/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New
York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
16 Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation, New York
17 Courtesy Gagosian Gallery,
New York, photo by Robert
McKeever
18 CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Runion
des Muses Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY 2005 Marcel
Duchamp/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/
Succession Marcel Duchamp
20 Digital Image 2005 The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Man Ray/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York
NOTES
Tzara, p. 1 Tristan Tzara,
Lecture on Dada (1922), in
The Dada Painters and Poets:
An Anthology, ed. Robert
Motherwell, 2d ed. (Cambridge,
Mass., 1981), 250.
Ball, p. 1 Hugo Ball, Dada
Fragments, entry for June 12,
1916, in Motherwell 1981, 51.
Tzara, p. 4-5 Tristan Tzara,
Proclamation without Pretension
(1919), in Motherwell 1981, 82.
Huelsenbeck, p. 7 Richard
Huelsenbeck, En Avant Dada:
A History of Dadaism (1920),
in Motherwell 1981, 23.
Schwitters, p. 9 Kurt Schwitters,
Kurt Schwitters (1930), in
Werner Schmalenbach, Kurt
Schwitters (New York, 1967), 32.
Ernst, p. 10 William Camfield,
Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of
Surrealism (Munich and Houston,
1991), 82.
Duchamp, p. 12 Society of
Independent Artists press
release, April 11, 1917, cited in
Todd Alden, Here Nothing,
Always Nothing: A New York
Dada Index, etc., in Francis M.
Naumann, Making Mischief:
Dada Invades New York (New
York, 1996), 88.
Steichen, p. 12 In Alden 1996, 129.
Rex, p. 13 Margery Rex, New York
Evening Journal, January 29, 1921.
Tzara, p. 15 Tristan Tzara,
Lecture on Dada (1922), in
Motherwell 1981, 250.
Written by Mark Levitch.
Prepared and produced by the
National Gallerys department of
education publications and
resources, department of modern
and contemporary art, and pub-
lishing office. Special thanks to
high school reviewer Julia Halperin.
Designed by Daphne Geismar:
daphnegeismar.com
2006 by Board of Trustees,
National Gallery of Art, Washington
21 Image: Burstein Collection/
CORBIS. Artwork: Estate of
Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris
22 PhotoCuisine/Corbis
Dada Dossiers
Hans Arp c. 1922. Hannah-Hch-
Archiv, Berlinische Galerie,
Landesmuseum fr Moderne
Kunst, Photographie und
Architektur 2005 Hans Arp/
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Johannes Baader June 22, 1919.
Photograph by Hannah Hch,
Hannah-Hch-Archiv, Berlinische
Galerie, Landesmuseum fr
Moderne Kunst, Photographie und
Architektur 2005 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Max Ernst in uniform
c. 19141918. Album of Philipp
Ernst, Private collection
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
c. 1920. University of Maryland
Libraries. Papers of Elsa von
Freytag-Loringhoven, Special
Collections, University of Mary-
land Libraries 2005 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York
Emmy Hennings in Zurich
1916/1917. Kunsthaus Zrich
Kunsthaus Zrich. All rights
reserved; photo: Hans Noldt
Hannah Hch in Gotha 1917.
Hannah-Hch-Archiv, Berlinische
Galerie, Landesmuseum fr
Moderne Kunst, Photographie
und Architektur 2005 Hannah
Hch/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn
Self-Portrait [May Ray] c. 1920.
Man Ray Trust. Man Ray Trust/
ADAGP-ARS/Telimage 2005
Kurt Schwitters c. 1920. Kurt
Schwitters Archiv im Sprengel
Museum Hannover 2005 Kurt
Schwitters/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn. Repro: Michael Herling/
Aline Gwose
Sophie Taeuber with her
puppets Zurich, 1918. Stiftung
Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-
Arp, e.V., Rolandseck 2005
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn,
photo: Ernst Linck
Tristan Tzara Zurich, 1918.
Fondation Arp, Clamart
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page 17
The exhibition is organized by the
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
and the Centre Pompidou, Paris,
in collaboration with The Museum
of Modern Art, New York.
The exhibition in Washington is
made possible through the
generous support of the Anna-
Maria and Stephen Kellen
Foundation and the Catherine B.
Reynolds Foundation.
Additional support for the exhibition
in Washington has been provided
by the Annenberg Foundation and
Thomas G. Klarner.
The exhibition is supported by an
indemnity from the Federal Council
on the Arts and the Humanities.
Dada is organized by Leah Dickerman,
associate curator of modern and
contemporary art, National Gallery
of Art, Washington, and Laurent
Le Bon, curator, Centre Pompidou,
Muse national dart moderne,
Paris, and is coordinated for The
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
by Anne Umland, curator, depart-
ment of painting and sculpture.
Check out the Education and
Exhibition menu options
on the Gallerys Web site
www.nga.govfor information
on high school studio work-
shops, films, and music related
to the Dada exhibition.
Cover
Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical
Head (The Spirit of Our Age),
c. 1920, mixed media. Centre
Pompidou, Muse national dart
moderne, Paris. Purchase, 1974
Mechanical Head is an unsettling
assemblage of measurement-
related found objectsincluding
a tape measure, clock innards,
and camera partsattached to
a wigmaking dummy. It was
intended to personify the empty
spirit of the artists postWorld
War I era.
71194_guide 1/31/06 7:28 AM Page B