DADAISM: ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, MANIFEST AND REPRESENTATIVES - LITERATURE - 2025

The Dadaism was a cultural and artistic movement born in Switzerland in 1916. At that time, Europe was in full First World War and the city of Zurich became a refuge for many intellectuals and artists who were trying to escape the conflict. Some of those refugees were the founders of the movement, such as Hugo Bell or Tristan Tzara.

The creators of Dadaism intended to destroy all codes and systems in the art world. Their movement, they claimed, was actually anti-artistic. This position, however, went beyond culture, since it was a total ideology that sought to break with the bourgeois and humanist schemes that had led to the outbreak of war.

Source by Marcel Duchamp- Source: Photoshop (me), original photo GNU from Gtanguy

With that intention, the Dadaists were betting on a total transformation. Among its principles were individual freedom, contradiction, the random and the defense of chaos against the established order. His works sought to impact viewers by breaking with previous artistic codes.

The ideas of this movement spread rapidly. Its members drew up several manifestos that found an echo in many parts of the world. Among the places that best welcomed Dada were Berlin, with a high ideological load, and New York.

Origin and historical context

The 19th century, especially in its second half, was a period of tension in Europe. During those decades, the threat of war breaking out between the continental powers was continuous.

Finally, those tensions caused by expansionism, imperialism and social conflicts ended up causing what everyone feared. In 1914 the First World War began which, in a few weeks, affected the entire European continent.

It was in this context that the first artistic vanguards appeared. These had a double meaning: the break with the previous order and the hope of being able to transform an extremely violent and chaotic world through art.

Zurich, haven for intellectuals and artists

World War I or the Great War stopped artistic and intellectual life on the continent. Some of the authors belonging to the vanguards were called up.

Some passed away and others were unable to return to their creative activities. Paris, the traditional cultural capital of Europe, which had welcomed the great artistic avant-gardes, was involved in the conflict.

Intellectuals and artists who did not have to enlist sought a safe haven. The destination chosen by a good part of them was Switzerland, which remained neutral in the war. In that country, the city that welcomed the most intellectuals was Zurich, which thus became a first-rate cultural center.

Cabaret Voltaire

Among the intellectuals who took refuge in Switzerland were members of various artistic avant-gardes, such as German Expressionism, French Cubism or Italian Futurism.

In this environment, a poet and theater director, Hugo Bell, and his wife designed a project to open a literary café where all these artists could meet. Thus was born the Cabaret Voltaire, inaugurated on February 5, 1916.

Bell announced the opening in the press and invited all Zurich resident artists to come to the venue. The call was a success and the Cabaret Voltaire was attended by Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, Marcel Janko and Richard Huelsenbeck, among many others.

Portrait of Tristan Tzara (Robert_Delaunay)

Creation of Dadaism and meaning of the term

Dadaism was born in one of the first meetings held at the Cabaret Voltaire. It was, specifically, on February 8, 1916, when a group of artists founded the movement.

The term “dada” was created by the three founders of this current: Jean Arp, Hans Richter and Tristan Tzara. According to his words, their meeting and the very foundation of Dadaism was due to the "art of coincidence."

There are two theories about the creation of the term Dadaism. According to the first, those present at the meeting opened a French dictionary at random. The first word that appeared on the page was "dada", which in that language means "wooden horse."

The second hypothesis indicates that, in reality, the name comes from the first sounds that a child makes: “da da”.

In both cases, the way to name the movement was the first protest against rationalism and intellectualism, both guilty, according to the Dadaists, of having provoked the war.

Expansion

Soon enough, the Dadaists began organizing activities with a common purpose: to shock and shock. The Voltaire became a fashionable place in the city thanks to the artistic proposals of this movement.

In 1917, members of the movement began publishing the magazine Dada, as well as various manifestos about their initiative.

That same year, the French painter Francis Picabia, also living in Switzerland, contacted Tzara and helped him complete the most important document within this movement: the Dadaist Manifesto. This saw the light in 1918 and contributed decisively to the expansion of his ideas.

After the First World War ended, Dada reached Germany and Paris. The return of some of the refugees in Zurich to their countries of origin played an important role in this expansion.

New York Group

Roue de bicyclette by Marcel Duchamp.

Zurich was not the only destination chosen by intellectuals who wanted to escape the First World War. New York, in the United States, was another of the cities that welcomed these refugees. Among those who arrived there were Duchamp and Picabia, who would become two of the leading Dadaists.

These artists took advantage of the New York cultural environment. In previous decades, some avant-garde currents had already appeared there that shared the nihilist and groundbreaking spirit of the Dadaists.

A year before Dadaism was founded, the magazine 291 had appeared in New York. The mentioned Duchamp and Picabia participated in it, as well as Man Ray and Jean Crotti.

Dadaism in Germany

One of the countries defeated in the Great War, Germany, was the seat of the most politically committed Dadaism. The German Dadaists were, for the most part, Communists or Anarchists, movements with great force at that time.

Germany had been destroyed after the war and, in addition, had to face very heavy compensation. In this context and following the example of the communist revolution in Russia, the German Spartacist League tried to develop its own revolutionary process.

Among the supporters of the Spartacists were the artists who were part of the Dada movement.

It was a former member of the Zurich group, Richard Hülsenbeck, who brought the ideas of the movement to Berlin, albeit radicalizing some positions. This author, in 1918, gave the first Dadaist speech in Germany, in which he harshly attacked other avant-gardes such as Expressionism or Cubism.

The German Dada movement lost part of its political character after the establishment of the Weimar Republic. From that moment on, they only dedicated themselves to the artistic side, a field in which they introduced new techniques such as photomontage.

Decline

Most experts note that Dada began its decline in 1923. A year later, its members decided to dissolve the movement. The reason, according to the Dadaists themselves, was that their popularity was causing them to put aside their basic tenets of provocation.

Dadaist manifesto

The Dadaist Manifesto, written by Tristan Tzara, was the most important document in the history of the movement. The text was made public for the first time in issue 3 of the magazine DADA, in Zurich in 1918.

Tzara, whose real name was Samuel Rosenstock, became one of the most important figures in Dadaism. In addition to authorship of the manifesto, he also organized numerous street shows in which he put his ideas about art into practice.

Other texts that were also quite important within the movement were the Manifesto on weak love and bitter love and La premiere aventure céleste by Mausleur Antipyrine, both also produced by Tzara.

Three issues of Dada magazine. Edited between 1917 and 1921

Content

Tzara used the Dada Manifesto to explain how the name of the movement had come about and what its purposes were.

The text reflected the opposition of the Dadaists to the validity of logic and the influence of morality in artistic creations. In opposition to this, they proposed the superiority of the irrational and affirmed the need for aesthetic subversion as a form of protest.

In addition to the rejection of morality, Tzara also opposed psychoanalysis, other avant-garde currents and that literature had didactic claims. The important thing was to go against the norm, with individual freedom as a flag.

Fragments

Characteristics of Dadaism

Battle fought during World War I

Dadaism was a movement eminently opposed to the reality of the time. Thus, it was anti-establishment, anti-artistic and anti-social. Much of their mockery was directed at bourgeois society, which they blamed for the outbreak of the First World War.

His way of displaying these ideas was a kind of experimental art. At first, the cabaret performances were very famous. In them, as in other activities, they did not hide their manifest intention to provoke controversies or even disturbances.

Social criticism

As has been commented, Dadaism was characterized by its criticism of the bourgeois society of the time. All artistic genres had to, therefore, present a critical perspective on that society. In this regard, there was a break with the modernist conception that defended the autonomy of art with respect to its environment.

Much of the rejection of the Dadaists was caused by the war raging in Europe. For them, the conflict was an inevitable consequence of bourgeois culture and the importance it attached to nationalism and rationalism.

In this sense, it can be said that Dadaism adopted a nihilistic philosophy, rejecting all "isms", cultural norms, prevailing values ​​and laws.

Anti-artistic movement

The great paradox of Dadaism was its declaration as an anti-art movement. Whereas, traditionally, works of art had to be original and eternal, the Dadaists rejected both assumptions.

For this reason, the Dadaists used mass-produced prefabricated materials, such as photographs, paintings, and other objects. For them, the choice of these materials, not created with artistic pretensions, was as important as the idea.

Ultimately, any object, no matter how everyday, can become art just by placing it in the right context. Without a doubt, the best example of this was 'El Urinal', a urinal that Marcel Duchamp exhibited and turned into a work of art.

These everyday materials, called ready-made, demonstrated that art was ephemeral and stripped it of the solemnity with which it was clothed.

Impact value

One of the tactics used by Dadaism to provoke spectators was by challenging the values ​​and standards until then accepted.

The impact, the shock, was fundamental in the Dada creations. The idea was to challenge the complacency and sensitivity of the public of the time. This, in addition to a break with artistic rules, should serve for society to begin to critically consider the rules.

Irrationalism

For the Dadaists, rationalism was one of the most important characteristics within the bourgeois society they attacked. For this reason, the movement opted for its opposite: the irrational.

In this bid for irrationalism, the Dadaists used Freud's ideas on free association. It was about freeing the unconscious to break with the moral, aesthetic and ethical norms imposed by society.

The free association technique was widely used by Dada writers. Along with him, the creators who embraced this movement also incorporated chance when making their works.

Dadaism

In its beginnings, literature was the artistic activity par excellence for Dadaism. As its principles set out, the writers of the movement sought to oppose all the norms imposed by bourgeois culture.

For this they developed writing techniques as far as possible from the traditional canons. In addition, the theme was expressly chosen to scandalize the bourgeoisie, as well as to pose uncomfortable questions about the role of the artist, of art itself and of society.

Portrait of André Breton, one of the literary representatives of Dadaism. Work of Victor Brauner.

Topics and techniques

As noted, Dada was defined as anti-artistic and provocative. In the case of literature, the authors used obscene words and texts made through visual games to protest against bourgeois society and show their rejection of war.

Part of the public was shocked by these works, which obviously caused satisfaction among the Dadaists.

Other characteristics of literary production were group collaboration, spontaneity and the use of chance to shape creations. Similarly, Dada writers abandoned traditional stylistic canons, such as meter in poetry.

Dadaism in architecture

Although architecture is not the field in which Dada ideas fit best, some examples can be found, especially in Germany.

Johannes Baader, an architect friend of Raoul Hausmann, was one of the components of the most political faction of Dadaism in Berlin. Already in 1906, ten years before the Dadaists appeared, he had designed the so-called World Temple, a place of worship that had some characteristics that related it to the movement.

Later, in 1920, he contributed to the making of the Great Plasto-Dio-Dada-Drama, a sculpture presented at the Dada Fair in Berlin that year.

Experts consider that Baader's work shows a combination of utopia and satire that connects it with Dadaism.

Hannover

Despite the importance of Baader in the Dada movement, the best examples of architecture created by followers of the movement were in Hannover, also in Germany. Kurt Schwitters, a graphic designer with some background in architecture, created his own personal brand called Merz.

Among his works were temporary installations that he made in the rooms of his own house. Many of these consisted of unifying art and everyday life, transforming the domestic into something changeable and strange.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Without a doubt, the most important architect within the Dada movement was Mies. He changed his classicist style after visiting the Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. From that moment on, he began to make truly novel photomontages that sought to make an impact on the audience. The best example was his project for the Friedrichstrasse Tower.

Mies continued his relationship with Dadaism by collaborating with the magazine G, which was published until 1926. The influence of the assemblages that Mies carried out reached great architects such as Le Corbusier, who used similar techniques when presenting his Plan Voisin in 1925.

Another of the projects presented by Mies with clear relationships with Dadaism was his proposal for Alexanderplatz, one of the best-known places in Berlin.

Dadaism

Although Dadaism had a strong visual character, examples of the use of its ideas in music can also be found. Among them, the sound poems composed by Kurt Schwitters or the music composed by Picabia and Ribemont-Dessaignes for the Dada Festival in Paris, in 1920.

Other composers who wrote Dada music were Erwin Schulhoff, Alberto Savinio or Hans Heusser. On the other hand, part of the Les Sixo components collaborated with members of the Dada movement.

Dadaism in painting

Painting was one of the artistic genres most used by the Dadaists. As in the rest of their creations, the painters of the movement abandoned traditional techniques and themes. The use of collages made with various materials stands out especially.

characteristics

The painting offered Dada the best framework to show the disorder and irrationalism of the artists. Picabia and part of the work of Picasso and Dalí are the most important examples of this trend.

Dada painters used their works to criticize the social reality of their time. They did so by rejecting conventional aesthetics and with works that were intended to provoke the public.

Its main characteristic was the use of unusual materials with the purpose of renewing artistic expression. Thus, many of his works consisted of montages made with papers, newspapers, cloth or labels. Dada painters used many scrap objects and presented them as artistic objects.

Featured Representatives

The first Dadaists appeared in Switzerland, forming the so-called Zurich group. Later, the movement spread to other places, such as Germany, Paris or New York.

Tristan tzara

The Romanian poet Tristan Tzara is known for being the author of the Dadaist Manifesto, as well as other documents in which he expounded the anti-artistic principles of the movement.

Tzara, whose real name was Samuel Rosenstock, is considered one of the greatest exponents of this cultural movement. His works include the collection of poems The first celestial adventure of Mr. Antipirina (1916) and Twenty-five poems (1919).

Jean arp

Like Tzara, Jean Arp was a member of the group that created the Dada movement. His works were characterized by being made with reliefs and collages. Likewise, he developed his own iconography of organic forms, a trend baptized as biomorphism and that the author used in many sculptures.

Some of his most important creations were Pez y mustache (1926) or Shepherd of clouds (1953).

Marcel Duchamp

Possibly the best known artist among those who adhered to the principles of Dadaism was the Frenchman Marcel Duchamp. It was he who introduced ready-mades as a material for works of art by starting to take everyday objects and turn them into art just because of the change of context and the will of the creator.

One of the earliest examples of ready-made was the work created by simply putting a bicycle wheel on a stool. His most famous and controversial creation of this type was Fontaine, a simple earthenware urinal placed backwards.

Max ernst

The German sculptor and painter Max Ernst followed the same path as other Dada artists. Thus, when the movement disappeared, it became a benchmark for surrealism.

His most innovative works were characterized by the use of new techniques, both in sculpture and painting. Her collages, photomontages, assemblages with recycled materials or her grattages were the main examples of these creations.

Cormorants (1920), by Max Ernst

One of his best-known exhibitions, held in collaboration with Baargeld, forced attendees to pass between urinals. At the same time, a girl in a first communion dress recited obscene poems.

In the same room where this was happening, a block of wood had been placed with an ax attached to it. The artists invited the assistants to take the ax and destroy the block. In addition, the walls were lined with collages with scandalous content. The aftermath of the exhibition prompted the authorities to close it down.

Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia was a French-born writer and painter who was involved in the Dada movement from its inception. In that early period, the artist collaborated with Tristan Tzara in the publication of the Dada magazine.

Before Dadaism emerged, Picabia used to produce very colorful and cubist paintings. Starting in 1916, he changed his style and began to create highly satirical-based mechanical devices.

With the end of the movement, the painter abandoned abstract representations and his works began to be based on human figures, although not naturalistic.

Man ray

Man Ray was the pseudonym used by Emmanuel Radnitzky, an artist from the United States who became one of the leaders of Dadaism, first, and Surrealism, later. His work was characterized by the search for the incongruous and the irrational, both concepts present in the Dadaist ideology.

His best known facet was that of photographer, since he defended that this discipline could be considered art. His images were classified by experts as conceptual and metaphorical.

In this way, Ray is considered the father of creative photography, both planned and improvised. Likewise, he was the creator of the deconstruction of photography, a technique with which he transformed traditional photos into laboratory creations by distorting shapes and bodies.

Dadaism in Mexico

Although Dadaism as such barely had an impact in Mexico, an avant-garde trend did appear that collected parts of its ideas. The Stridentists, in addition to this Dadaist influence, were also influenced by Cubism, Ultraism, Expressionism or Futurism.

This movement was highly concentrated in Mexico City, with some representatives in Jalapa and Veracruz. Founded by Manuel Maples Arce, it was in force from 1921 to 1927.

The Estridentistas were characterized by their experimental poetry. His publications, moreover, were illustrated by painters of the same current. As it happened in Berlin, this movement had a very social character, since its members were considered revolutionaries, both political and artistic.

On the other hand, in 1975 another literary movement appeared in the Mexican capital whose characteristics make it related to Dadaism: infra-realism. This current was created by twenty young poets, among which Roberto Bolaño, Mario Santiago Papasquiaro and José Rosas Ribeyro stood out.

Dadaism

The first references to Dadaism in Colombia were very negative. Already in the 1920s, Colombian art critics wrote about "the ridiculousness of a Picasso and a Picabia."

Only 50 years later, with the appearance in the country of Conceptualism, some works were produced with a certain relation to Dadaism. Among them, the creations of Bernardo Salcedo, an artist from Bogotá who used prefabricated elements to make his works, stood out. The author himself claimed that he sought to express "logical nonsense."

Another artist in whom the Dadaist influence can be found is Álvaro Barrios, who is especially indebted to Duchamp's work.

In addition to the above, some experts affirm that artists such as Bernardo Salcedo and Marta Traya also collect some ideas from Dadaism. The former is considered one of the most innovative sculptors in the country of the entire 20th century.

Finally, Colombia was the country of origin of an artistic avant-garde called Nadaism. Its own name comes from the fusion between the term "Dadaism" and the word "nothing". This movement was eminently literary and its theme was characterized by social denunciation.

Dadaism in Argentina

The greatest exponent of Dadaism in Argentina was Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, a very popular artist in the 1960s. According to some critics of the country, this author was a kind of Marcel Duchamp from Buenos Aires.

Another artist related to Dadaism was Xul Solar, a painter who created his own visual language in which he mixed Expressionism, Surrealism and Dadaism itself.

Dadaism in Spain

Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Image taken in 1928

Like the rest of the European artistic avant-gardes of the early 20th century, Dadaism hardly found any following in Spain. In this country, both conservatives and progressives rejected these movements, albeit for different reasons.

The former were against all innovation, while the latter considered that it was a matter that only concerned the most privileged. In addition, Spain remained a neutral country in the First World War, so there was no such thing as a rejection of the conflict so present between the Dadaists.

Only a small group, liberal in style, tried to collect ideas from Europe. Among them, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Guillermo de Torre and Rafael Cansinos Assens stood out.

De la Serna was the maximum diffuser in Spain of these European avant-garde currents. Starting in 1908, he participated in various magazines that promoted all kinds of artistic manifestations. However, these publications were closer to Futurism or Ultraism than to Dadaism.

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