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DADAISM
B Y: N a t h a l i e C l a i r e C . S a l u d a r e s

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 What is Dadaism?
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Dadaism or Dada is a post-World War I

cultural movement in visual art as well as
literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic
design.
A protest against the barbarism of the War
and what Dadaists believed was an oppressive
intellectual rigidity in both art and everyday
society; its works were characterized by a
deliberate irrationality and the rejection of the
prevailing standards of art.
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Who Founded
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• Richard Huelsenbeck, a poet, and painter-

musician Hugo Ball selected the word at random
f r o m a G e r m a n - F r e n c h D i c t i o n a r y.
• “Dada” was coined in Zurich in 1916.
• A n o n s e n s e w o r d , i t m e a n s “ Ye s - Ye s ” i n
Russian, “There-There” in German (baby talk),
and “Hobby horse” in French.

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History
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• Dadaism was a cultural manifestation which grew in the beginning of the 20th century,
more precisely between 1916-1923.Nihilism engendered by war, and the revolutionary spirit
released by Cubism (the first revolutionary art movement) were the key factors behind the
movement’s growth and appeal• It employed a barrage of demonstrations and manifestos,
and exhibitions of absurdist art which were designed to shock both the authorities and the
general public.
•Cabaret Voltaire was founded in Zurich by Richard Huelsenbeck, Hugo Ball, Jean Arp and
Tristan Tzara, as an early center of multi-cultural Dada events and protest show. The
“Fountain”, a major Dadaist work by Marcel Duchamp, was rejected at the exhibition of the
Society of Independent artists, causing an uproar among the Dadaists. It influenced later
modern art movements such as Surrealism and Pop Arts, and led to important innovations
in fine art like collage and photo-montage.

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Dadaism
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“The idea is more important than the work

itself”

“Art can be made of anything”

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Characteristics
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In general, Dada sought to undermine all art,
viewing it as part of cultural norms and sensibilities
that established oppressive aesthetic standards and
emphasized the "reason" and "order" that had led to
the self-annihilating destruction of World War I.
Therefore, anything that contradicted these norms-
chaos, irrationality, impermanence, repugnance-was
fair game for Dadas proponents.

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Social
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The Dadaists were inherently political in their

motivations. They rejected the modernist conception of
the autonomy of art or "art for the arts sake.“Art in its
various forms -- theater, the visual arts, literature and
music - - should present critical perspectives through
which to critique society. The Dadaists saw World War I
as a logical consequence of bourgeois culture and
civilization and its emphasize on rationalism and
nationalism. The point of departure for Dada was the
rejection of all "isms" as well as all cultural norms,
standards and values.
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Anti-art
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The rejection of cultural standards and values also

implied the rejection of "art" as well. The Dadaists saw
themselves an anti- art movement. Two of the primary
assumptions of the traditional concept of art are that art
work is original and that the truth value of the art work is
eternal.
For everything that art stood for, Dada was to
represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with
aesthetics, Dada ignored them. If art is to have at least an
implicit or latent message, Dada strives to have no
meaning--interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on
the viewer. If art is to appeal to sensibilities, Dada
offends.
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Shock Value
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One way to challenge the prevailing

cultural standards and values of
bourgeois culture is to intentionally
shock and provoke the audience. The
Dadaists used shock as a means of
challenging the publics sensibility and
complacency about the contemporary
world. In addition to challenging the
rules for art, Dadas intent was to use art
to encourage the public to think
critically about all rules.
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“
Famous Dadaists and their works

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Click toDuchamp
Marcel edit Master title style
A man of great humor and wit, Duchamp
loved nothing more than jokes, puns and
challenging others to think beyond
conventional wisdom. He is best known
for introducing the ready-made (or
"found") object into visual art, co-
founding Dada and being affiliated with
the Surrealists. Perhaps his greatest
contribution, though, is that he almost
singlehandedly shifted the focus of art
away from the strictly visual and onto the
mental. Duchamp's enormous impact on
Contemporary Art cannot be overstated.

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Click to Wheel
Bicycle edit Master
1951 title style Fountain
Bicycle Wheel is a readymade by Marcel
Duchamp consisting of a bicycle fork with Duchamp’s most notorious readymade was
front wheel mounted upside-down on a a manufactured urinal entitled Fountain.
wooden stool. Conceived for a show promoting avant-
garde art, Fountain took advantage of the
show’s lack of juried panels, which
invariably excluded forward-looking artists.

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Clickof
Mile toString
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“Duchamp bought 16 miles of

string, of which only one mile was
used, to prepare an entanglement
in which the visitor experienced
difficulties in finding his way to
the paintings, a metaphor for the
difficulties which the layman often
encounters in the attempt to
understand modern painting"

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Click to editor
L.H.O.O.Q. Master
La Joconde1964
title style
Primary responses to L.H.O.O.Q.
interpreted its meaning as being an
attack on the iconic Mona Lisa and
traditional art, thus promoting the
Dadaist ideals. Perhaps Duchamp
decided to use his ready-mades to
not only critique established art
conventions, but to also force the
audience to put aside what they had
thought before and look at
something with a completely
different perspective. By making the
gender of the Mona Lisa ambiguous,
Duchamp claimed to present his
audience with a new perspective at
a classic work of art.

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ClickErnst
Max to edit Master title style

• Max Ernst was a German painter,

sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A
prolific artist, Ernst was a primary
pioneer of the Dada movement and
Surrealism.
• “ Art has nothing to do with taste. Art
is not there to be tasted.”

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ClickElephant
The to edit Master
Celebes
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The central focus of the

painting is a giant
mechanical elephant. It is
round and has a trunk-like
hose protruding from it. The
creature has a frilly metallic
cuff or collar, and a horned
head and tail.

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Pietàtoou
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It is a controversial
painting since the
critics claimed that it
is a production of the
Virgin Mary holding
her baby, but the
Virgin Mary is
replaced by the
artist’s father and
Jesus by the artist
Himself.

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“ Francis Picabia

“Dada talks with you, it is everything,

it belongs to all religions, can be
neither victory nor defeat, it lives in
space and not in time.’’

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Amorous Parade
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“I have forced myself to

contradict myself in order to
avoid conforming to my own
taste. ’’
–Marcel Duchamp

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Thankyou

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