Dada and Surrealism

1. Dada and Surrealism

2. Dada “The good thing is that you cannot and probably should not understand dada” -Richard Huelsenbeck

3. Zurich Dada

7. “We searched for an elementary art that would save mankind from the furious folly of these times”. Jean Arp. “ Since no art, politics or religious faith seems adequate to dam this torrent, there remains only the blague and the bleeding pose” Hugo Ball

10. New York Dada

14. 'Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view - created a new thought for that object.'- Duchamp

15. The readymade… Three important points… -the choice of object is itself a creative act -that by cancelling the 'useful' function of an object it becomes art. - the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it 'a new thought', a new meaning. - Also, Duchamp's readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist.

24. Dada spreads… Post war Dada

37. The optimism of Dada… “it was not an artistic movement in the accepted sense; it was a storm that broke over the world of art as the war did over the nations. It came without warning, out of a heavy brooding sky and left behind it a new day in which stored up energies released new directions, new people - and in which they addressed themselves to new people”