Neo-Dada: Redefining Art, 1958-1962

Author(s): Susan Hapgood and Jennifer Rittner

Source: Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 63-70
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of the Performing Arts Journal, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245699
Accessed: 08/02/2009 18:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The MIT Press and Performing Arts Journal, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Performing Arts Journal.

http://www.jstor.org
 NEO-DADA
Redefining Art, 1958-1962
Susan Hapgood and Jennifer Rittner
An exhibition organized by The American Federation of Arts
he ironic wit, unconventional
methods, and provocative
themes of the avant-garde art-
ists of the late 1950s and early 1960s
are examined in "Neo-Dada: Redefin-
ing Art, 1958-1962," an AFA exhibi-
tion that is currently touring the coun-
try. Focusing for the first time on the
Neo-Dada phenomenon in the United
States and Europe, the exhibition exam-
ines the diverse art manifestations to
which the rubrics Pop Art, Nouveau
Realisme, Fluxus, and Happenings have
been applied. It demonstrates how im-
portant the Dadaist influence was dur-
ing this brief period, and reveals com-
mon attitudes that prevailed across a
broad spectrum of art. The exhibition
brings together 65 works, most created
in the period between 1958 and 1962,
by such artists as Arman, JasperJohns,
Allan Kaprow, Yves Klein, Claes
Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Niki
de Saint Phalle, and Jean Tinguely. Also
included is a small selection of pieces by
Dada masters Marcel Duchamp and
Kurt Schwitters, whose work was a
crucial influence on the younger artists'
own readymades, found objects, detri-
tus, environmental, and performance
pieces.
The term "Neo-Dada," though coined
in the late 1950s as a pejorative slap and
never applied consistently, quickly be-
came the principal term used to de-
scribe art made between Abstract Ex-
pressionism and Pop Art. During these
years of creative ferment, many younger
artists broke away from the then domi-
nant conventions of painterly abstrac-
tion in search of alternate approaches to
making art. Inspiredby the radicalmeth-
ods, "anti-art"materials, and iconoclas-
tic attitudes of the original Dada move-
ment that flourished from 1916 until
1922, this new generation of artists
challenged the rules about what art
should be, both conceptually and visu-
ally.
The strongest Dada impulses informing
younger American and European artists
of the 1950s were Duchamp's notion of
the "readymade"-manufactured prod-
ucts designated as art objects-and
Schwitters's collage technique that in-
corporated scraps and bits of everyday
material. Although the appearance of
their work differs significantly, nearly all
of the artists characterized as Neo-
Dadaists seem definitively drawn either
to Schwitters's more formalist aestheti-
* 63
cized style, or Duchamp's more concep-
tual approach, which veered toward
irony and wit. More globally, the Neo-
Dada artists' use of chance as a com-
positional method, their interest in
performance and other ephemeral mani-
festations, and their challenges to the
conventional exhibition, distribution,
and commodification of art, reflect pro-
found shifts effected by Dada in atti-
tudes about making art.
In this exhibition, concrete connections
between the younger artists and their
Dada predecessors will be evident in
the ubiquitous reintroduction of the
Duchampian "readymade," found ob-
jects, found images, and detritus by
such artists as Arman, Johns, Rausch-
enberg, and Tinguely; the extension
into environments begun by Schwitters's
Merzbau and later explored by Kaprow,
Edward Kienholz, and Oldenburg; the
use of chance as a compositional tool by
Cage, Robert Morris, and De Saint
Phalle; and the anti-bourgeois ap-
proaches taken by George Macuinas,
Daniel Spoerri, Piero Manzoni, and
Yoko Ono. Also representedin the exhi-
bition are Wallace Berman, George
Brecht, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine,
Fluxus, Jean Follet, Raymond Hains,
George Herms, Dick Higgins, Yves
Klein, Alison Knowles, Nam June Paik,
Carolee Schneemann, Richard Stan-
kiewicz, Ben Vautier, Andy Warhol,
Robert Watts, and LaMonte Young.
NEO-DADA
Dada was founded in 1916 in Zurich
by artists and writers who fled their
respective homelands during the first
World War. Dada art mocked tradi-
64 * PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL 49
tional culture. Artists such as Duchamp,
Schwitters, and Jean Arp, among oth-
ers, experimented with theatre, music,
art created by chance, readymades, col-
lage, and political propaganda.Although
the movement lasted only six years, its
message spread throughout much of the
world and continued to influence artists
of later generations.
In 1951, a book which chronicled the
evolution of Dada, The Dada Painters
and Poets (Robert Motherwell, editor)
was published. Galleries and museums
organized an increasing number of art
exhibitions focusing on Dada, and ideas
initiated by the Dada artist were passed
on to young artists by Cage in a class on
music composition taught at The New
School. Many artists in Europe and the
United States were empowered by their
new-found knowledge of the art move-
ment. By the late 1950s they had begun
to experiment with unconventional
materials, formats, techniques, and ex-
hibition spaces. "Neo-Dada" quickly
became the term chosen to describe art
that demonstrated similar aesthetic and
ideological principles.
By 1962 Neo-Dada was largely a thing
of the past. Artists who had been re-
ferred to as Neo-Dadaists rejected the
label because they did not form a ho-
mogeneous group or even an art move-
ment by their own or by institutional
definitions. Although the term "Neo-
Dada" is not widely accepted by artists
of the period, it is valuable in pointing
to a common set of assumptions and
attitudes that prevailed across a spec-
trum of art that has now come to be
known as Pop Art, Nouveau Realisme,
Fluxus, Assemblage, Environments,
Happenings, and Beat culture.
 /..s/
4s I

%i?,
I

,^~ .i . ~~. ~

Collection
of the artist. Photo: Courtesy Susan Hapgood/AFA.

Yoko Ono, Painting to Hammer a Nail, 1961 (recreated

1994). Wood panel,

Collection of the artist. Photo: Courtesy Susan Hapgood/AFA.

HAPGOOD and RITTNER / RedefiningArt * 65

 Top: Dick Higgins performing Danger Music
Number Seventeen,ca. 1962. Photograph.
Bottom: Dick Higgins, Score for Danger
Music Number Seventeen,ca. 1960, color laser
copy, 1994 (original, ink on paper),
31/1(" x 51/8". Collection: The Gilbert and Lila
Silverman Fluxus Collection. Photo: (top)
Mercedes Vostell/Courtesy AFA; (bottom)
Oren Slor/Courtesy AFA.

-111~~grd
?t~Br- B; ~ ~
-Qk4 ,-

Dr.-?r tasic .'.ua:;er S n;.r:.?on'

Sciee m ^I SCeeami! So.rene i

.. eaai
Sc:; ! .. sc.'eanI !Ie.e anr I

~~~~l~~~~~~~%
?y~~~~~~~~~~~~
ia~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-.~~~~~
a*s~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~gPg~~~~~~~~~~~~s~~~~~~~i8tP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nr
?

Andy Warhol, Dr. Scholl 1960. Oil on canvas,

48" x 40". Collection: The Metropolitan
Museum of Art; gift of Halston (1982.505).
Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art/
Courtesy AFA.

66 * PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL 49

 George Herms, Saturn Collage,
1960. Mixed media;
72" x 48" x 10". Collection:
Paul Cornwall-Jones. Photo:
ABSOCLUMENT Ken Cohen/Courtesy AFA.

N' IM PCORTE
QU0,1 :OEST t0ART

Ben Vautier, Absolument n'importe

DU. 26 OCTOBRE AU 8 .NOVEMBR.E
quoi est art (AbsolutelyAnything Is
(RENSEIONEMElNTS ETYPROGRAMMIE) Art), 1962. Ink on paper;
GALERIEA - SQUARE ROYAL, 35, RUE
9W/ x 125/8". Collection: Jon and
D. FRANCE ET CENTRE D'ART TOTAL
Joanne Hendricks. Photo:
LESCAENE - - ICE TEL- sO.58- Oren Slor/Courtesy AFA.

HAPGOOD and RITTNER / RedefiningArt U 67

 Arman, Invitation to Le Plein
(Full Up), 1960. Refuse in sardine
can; 41/8" x 21/21 X 1/8" (edition
number 438/500). Collection of
the artist, New York. Photo:
David Reynolds/Courtesy AFA.

Daniel Spoerri, Les Lunettes

noires (Black Eyeglasses),1961
(recreated 1994). Metal pins
and eyeglass hinges glued to
eyeglasses; 13/4" x 43/8X x 51/2".

(Recreated by The American

Federation of Arts according to
the artist's instructions.)
Collection of the artist. Photo:
Don Soper/Courtesy AFA.

I I

68 U PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL 49

ASSEMBLAGE
The use of found objects to make sculp-
tures has a rich history in twentieth-
century art. Among the Dada artists,
Schwitters most frequently adapted cast-
off bits of paper and wood to his collage
format, and even created an interior
environment including found elements.
He encouraged artists to consider what-
ever material they liked to make art.
Beginning in the early 1950s, Rausch-
enberg freely assembled found objects
to createsculptureslike SlowFall(1961).
These sculptures, which he sometimes
called "combines,"undoubtedly inspired
other American artists to use found
elements. At the same time, the French
artist Arman accumulated household
refuse and then dared to display it in
vitrines, as in Grand Dechets bourgeois
(LargeBourgeois Trash)(1960). Equally
provocative is Kaprow'sUntitled(1959),
now recreatedafter the original of 1959.
It consists of a mound of newspaper
balls that can be put together by any-
one, and which exists only for the dura-
tion of the exhibition. Another recycled
material is used in Butternut (1962) by
John Chamberlain, who twisted and
transformed pieces of automobile metal
to make a new abstractcomposition. By
challenging traditional expectations
about art, these and other works in the
show throw more conventional art prac-
tices into relief, provoking the viewer to
consider how arbitraryand constrictive
such traditions can become.
ART OF THE EVERYDAY
In 1922, the Dada poet Tristan Tzara
wrote, "Art is not the most precious
manifestation of life ... Life is far more
HAPGOOD and RITTNER / RedefiningArt *
interesting." This statement epitomizes
the art included in this exhibition. Tzara's
concept was revived by Cage in the late
1950s in his New School course. Artists
increasingly rejoiced in everyday rou-
tines, in mundane activities and objects
that by their very nature denied any
possibility of artistic elitism, removing
art from its isolation on a pedestal.
At one extreme of this approach are the
various scores and texts in the exhibi-
tion which describe specific actions or
performances. In some cases these do
not even need to be performed, but can
be realized mentally. LaMonte Young's
various compositions, twelve of which
are included, range from complex sets
of instructions incorporating methods
of composition determined by chance,
to more simple scores like Composition
1960 #55 (1960), which gives clear
instructions on a performance involv-
ing the flight of a butterfly. Even an
action as routine as making a salad was
specified in Proposition(1965) by Alison
Knowles. In his Danger Music Number
17 (ca. 1960), Dick Higgins requires
more vehemence from the performer,
who is instructed to "Scream! !Scream!
!Scream! !Scream! !Scream! !Scream!"
Some of the performance pieces created
in the late 1950s and early 1960s echo
the provocation and absurdity of those
staged at the CabaretVoltaire in Zurich
during the early years of Dada.
PERMUTATIONS OF THE
READYMADE
Readymades, a term first used by Marcel
Duchamp, are manufacturedobjects that
artists have decided to call art. Talking
about readymades like his Roue de
bicyclette (Bicycle Wheel) (1913/1964),
69
Duchamp said that he took "an ordi-
nary article of life, placed it so that its
useful significance disappeared under
the new title and point of view-cre-
ated a new thought for that object"
(The Blind Man, 1917).
Inspired by Duchamp's preference for
choices of the mind instead of the
ability of the hand, artists in the late
1950s adopted objects, images, or ev-
eryday activities and presented them as
art. In George Brecht's Chair Events
(1961), for example, the artist specified
three different situations for the display
of readily available chairs, accentuating
the importance of context in defining
the audience's perception of art. In
Victoire de Samothrace (Victory of
Samothrace) (1962/1973), Yves Klein
started with a miniature replica of a
world-famous sculpture, and covered it
with brilliant-colored blue pigment that
he called "International Klein Blue."
Some Neo-Dada artists intended their
work as a sort of pointed provocation or
protest against traditionalism in art.
Could there be a greater affront to
viewers accustomed to savoring the
brushstrokes of abstract painting than
Daniel Spoerri's disturbing Les Lunette
noires (BlackEyeglasses)(1961)? Perhaps
it would be Piero Manzoni's Merda
d'artista (Artists Shit) (1961), with its
outrageous equation of artistic produc-
tion with defecation. Or the giant
mechanized sculptural contraption of
Spoerri's friend, Jean Tinguely, Meta-
maticNo. 12 ("Legrand Charles')(1951),
made to churn out abstract composi-
tions by itself and which makes humor-
ous references to originality and con-
sumerism in art, as well as the seriousness
of abstract painting. Edward Kienholz,
on the other hand, declared art to be a
form of social protest. In O'er the Ram-
parts We Watched,Fascinated(1959), he
registered disgust for Americans' perva-
sive attraction to violence.
[The exhibitionis organizedby The American
Federation of Arts. It is a project of ART
ACCESS, a programof the AFA with major
supportfrom the Lila Wallace-Reader'sDigest
Fund.It openedits tour at the ScottsdaleCenter
for the Arts, Scottsdale,Arizonain November
1994 and continues at the EquitableGallery,
New York(January-March 1995); the Contem-
poraryArtsMuseum,Houston (Summer1995);
the Tufts UniversityArt Gallery,Medford(Fall
1995); and the FloridaInternationalUniversity
Art Museum, Miami (anuary-February1996).
In conjunction with the exhibition, an illus-
trated catalogue by Susan Hapgood is being
publishedby the AFA in associationwith Uni-
verse Publishing. In addition to the curator's
leadessayon Neo-Dadain the United Statesand
Europe, the book includes essays by Maurice
Berger("Formsof Violence:Neo-Dada Perform-
ance")and Jill Johnston ("Dadaand Fluxus").
Interviewswith Arman, Allan Kaprow, Claes
Oldenburg and Daniel Spoerri, and texts by
John Cage, JasperJohns, and Niki de Saint
Phalleaccompanythe essays.]

AFA guest curator SUSAN HAPGOOD was co-curator of the exhibition

FLUXATTITUDES presented at New Yorks New Museum for Contempo-
raryArt in 1992. A frequent contributor to Art in America,she is currently
curator of the Woodner Family Collection. JENNIFER RITTNER is AFA
Assistant Curator of Education.

PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL, NO. 49 (1995) PP. 63-70:

Copyright ? 1994 The American Federation of Arts.

70 * PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL 49