What is Dadaism?

Dadaism is a form of artistic anarchy born during the First World War in Switzerland out of disgust
for the social, political and cultural values of the time. Despite its origins being in Zurich at the
Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, it soon became popular amongst artists in New York and Paris, peaking
between the years 1916 and 1923. The Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic,
reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and
anti-bourgeois protest in their works. Despite origins of the term ‘dada’ not being known for certain,
there are a number popular speculations about the meaning behind the movement’s name. A
common story is that the German artist Richard Huelsenbeck slid a letter-opener at random into a
dictionary, where it landed on "dada", a colloquial French term for a hobbyhorse. Others note that it
suggests the first words of a child, evoking a childishness and absurdity that appealed to the group.
Despite none of these origins ever being confirmed for definite, they all reflect the abstract and
irrational nature of the artistic movement. There were no limits to the sectors of art that embraced
this style, with it commonly being incorporated into music, poetry, art, dance and politics. Its aim
was to destroy traditional values in art and create a new art to replace the old. As the Dadaistic artist
Hans Arp wrote on the subject, ‘Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich
devoted ourselves to the arts. While the guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made
collages and wrote poems with all our might.’ Members of the movement were so determined on
opposing all norms of the bourgeois culture that the group was barely in favor of itself, often stating
that ‘Dada is anti-Dada’.

Origins of the Dadaism movement

During WW1 in Zurich, Switzerland, Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings opened up the Cabaret Voltaire,
a meeting spot for artists and poets. The two, along with a variety of other performers and artists
discussed art and put on performances at the venue expressing their disgust with the war and the
interests that inspired it. Having left their home countries during the Great War to avoid
conscription, many artists found themselves in Switzerland, a country recognized for its neutrality.
Inside this space of political neutrality, they decided to use this free environment to fight against the
social, political, and cultural ideas of that time in the rest of the world. For the disillusioned artists of
the Dada movement, the war merely confirmed the downfall of social structures that led to such
violence: corrupt and nationalist politics, repressive social values, and unquestioning conformity of
culture and thought. From 1916 until the mid-1920s, artists in Zurich, New York, Cologne, Hanover,
and Paris declared an all-out assault against not only on conventional definitions of art, but on
rational thought itself. “The beginnings of Dada,” poet Tristan Tzara recalled, “were not the
beginnings of art, but of disgust.” Dadaists believed these ideas to be a byproduct of bourgeois
society, a society so apathetic it would rather fight a war against itself than challenge the status quo.
As the artists and poets in Switzerland started becoming more abstract in their writing, began
dressing in cardboard when putting on shows and got even more ironic with their art, they realised
they had created something beyond reason. The only ‘goal’ of Dadaism was to reveal the hypocrisy
and meaninglessness within everyone, including themselves. The movement spread quickly and
soon made its way to America. It peaked the interest of artist Marcel Duchamp, and lead him to take
interest in a New York art expedition that claimed to accept any piece submitted by an artist. Testing
this, he opted to submit a urinal turned on the side with the name ‘R.Mutt’ written on it. Shortly
after submission the piece, titled ‘Fountain’, was rejected despite their initial claims. Dunchamp saw
this as a victory, not only for himself but for art as a whole as it revealed how hypocritical the
bourgeois truly was.