Anti-art is the definition of a work which may be exhibited or delivered in a

conventional context but makes fun of serious art or challenges the nature of art.

A work such as Marcel Duchamp's Fountain of 1917 is a prime example of anti-art. It

is a Dadaist work of art. Much of Dadaism is associated with the quality of being anti-
art. While the Dada movement per se was generally confined to Western Europe in
the early 1900s, anti-art has a wider scope.

Since then various avant-garde art movements have a position on anti-art and the term
is also used to describe other intentionally provocative art forms, such as nonsense
verse.

The Stuckist painters claim to make "Anti-anti-art."

Dadaism: (1916 - 1924)

Dada began as an anti-art movement, in the sense that it rejected the way art was
appreciated and defined in contemporary art scenes. Founded in Zurich, Switzerland,
the movement was a response to World War I. It had no unifying aesthetic
characteristics but what brought together the Dadaists was that they shared a nihilistic
attitude towards the traditional expectations of artists and writers. The word Dada
literally means both "hobby horse" and "father", but was chosen at random more for
the naive sound. What After finding its origins in Zurich, the Dada movement spread
the Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, some parts of Russia, and New York city.

In Zurich, the movement was centered in Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire, where many
of the founding Dadaist gathered to express their ideas. In the United States, Dada
found its central location at Alfred Steiglitz’s gallery "291" and the studio of the
Walter Arensbergs. Neutral during both World Wars, Switzerland was an ideal place
for objectors to the war, those avoiding military service, and those who wished to find
a place for free expression.

Other elements integral to the Dada movement were the non-attempt to underlie work
with any reference to intellectual analysis. Dada was also a reaction the bourgeois
Victorian values of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The work was also absurd
and playful but at times intuitive and even cryptic. Methods of production were
unconventional, employing the chance technique, and found objects. Dadaists
rejection of these values was an attempt to make a statement on the social values and
cultural trends of a contemporary world facing a devastating period of war.

Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968)

Nationality: French
Movement: Dadaism
Media: Painting, Sculpture
Influences:

Biography:
Marcel Duchamp studied in Paris, where he acquired the stimulus of Cézanne and
the Fauves. He later combined the properties of Cubism and Futurism, to create a
revolutionary piece entitled Nude Descending a Staircase. Duchamp was also the
creator of the ready-made in 1913 , an everyday object transformed by its
context. For example, in Duchamp’s 1917 piece, Fountain, he exhibited a
unmodified urinal as his sculpture. In 1915, he moved to New York and became
an influential figure in American Dadaism. His later works were intending to be
playful and humorous, but also rebellions against the stiff nature of the art world.

Dada - The Anti-War Art

Movement
 Dada was many things, but it
was essentially an anti-war
movement in Europe and
New York from 1915 to
1923. It was an artistic revolt
and protest against
traditional beliefs of a pro-
war society, and also fought
against sexism/racism to a
lesser degree. The word
"dada" was picked at random
out of a dictionary, and is
actually the French word for
"hobbyhorse".

The most widely accepted

account of the movement's
naming concerns a meeting
held in 1916 at Hugo Ball's
Cabaret (Café) Voltaire in
Zürich, during which a paper
knife inserted into a French-
German dictionary pointed to
the word "dada".
Hannah Hoch - Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the
First Epoch of the Weimar Beer-Belly Culture, 1919.
The above piece by Hannah Hoch epitomizes the The European movement
Dada attitude towards war: That it is chaos. That the was started in 1915 in Zurich
world has gone mad. That war itself is craziness by sculptor Hans Arp, film-
incarnate destroying humanity. maker Hans Richter, and
poet Tristan Tzara.

By the end of World War I,

Dada was very popular in the
German cities Berlin,
Cologne and Hanover,
expressing the view of many
Germans at the time that the
war was folly. The artists
included: Raoul Hausmann,
John Heartfield, Max Ernst,
Kurt Schwitters, Otto Dix,
and George Grosz (Dix and
Grosz later became part of
the Neue Sachlichkeit
movement). The German
artists released the issued
Dada publications: Club
Dada, Der Dada, Jedermann
sein eigner Fussball
 ("Everyman His Own
Football"), and Dada
Almanach.

The New York art movement

arose almost independently.
The movement was centered
at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery,
"291," and at the studio of
the Walter Arensbergs. Its
leaders were: Marcel
Duchamp, Man Ray, and
Francis Picabia. The New
York counterpart tended to
be more whimsical and less
about the violence that was
happening overseas.

Picabia founded a Dada

periodical called "391" in
Barcelona and introduced the
Dada movement to Paris in
1919. Most notable among
the French Dada pamphlets
and reviews was 'Littérature'
(published 1919-24), which
contained writings by André
Breton, Louis Aragon,
Philippe Soupault, and Paul
Éluard. The Paris Dada
movement later evolved into
Surrealism by 1924.
Dada led on from Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, and in turn prepared the way
for Surrealism. It was enlivened by bizarre and extravagant personalities, notably
Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Max
Ernst, and Man Ray, whose contributions are fully discussed. The spirit of Dada
reappeared in the 1960s in movements such as Pop Art, which are surveyed in the
final section.