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ART HISTORY 4450 Dadaism
Dadaism •
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context: environmental – Zurich (Switzerland) • neutral territory during WWI • refuge for avant-garde artists aim: to shock Swiss bourgeoisie w/ nonsensical performances term: “Dada” – suggests a regression to early childhood • French a child’s wooden [hobby]horse • first syllables spoken by children learning to talk scope: international movement – originated in Zurich and New York at the height of WWI – quickly spread to Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Hanover) and Paris
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Dadaism •
aim: destruction of bourgeois values in art and society
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credo: “Everything the artist spits is art”
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significance: first art movement to turn avant-garde weapons of confrontation & contradiction against itself
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aesthetic: nihilistic & iconoclastic – no formal aesthetic – no use for the person of “sensibility” to take refuge in beauty – to attack the icons of the old culture
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methods: a kind of “anti-art” – iconoclastic attitude toward tradition – exalts commonplace objects, by taking them out of context – incorporates effects of randomness & chance – playful & experimental (e.g., doodling, automatic writing) – historically unacceptable techniques & materials
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) •
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biography: born to successful notary – culturally oriented; family interests included music, art, literature & chess training: Academie Julian (1904-05) – absorbed variety of influences outside the Academy (e.g., Cezanne, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism) significance: ability to question, admonish, critique, and playfully ridicule existing norms in order to transcend status quo aim: to seduce viewer through irony and verbal witticisms rather than relying on technical or aesthetic appeal career: – 1908: exhibited in Salon d'Automne – 1911: becomes friends w/ Francis Picabia (Franco-Cuban artist); hosts regular discussion group w/ other artists and writers, including: Picabia, Delaunay, Léger, Gris, and Archipenko – 1912: painted few canvases thereafter; instead, used technical drawing approach – 1920s: renounced art making in favor of playing chess for remainder of his life
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Duchamp
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Nude Descending a Staircase #2 (1912) – –
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exhibition history: asked to withdraw painting from Salon des Indépendants (Paris) style: Cubo-Futurist • Analytical Cubism – monochromatic – fractured geometric planes – shallow spatial order • Futurism sense of movement figure: dehumanized • symbolized new mechanical factors • not just succession of abstract lines and shapes • “living figure” set in environment doing a routine activity
Duchamp
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Bicycle Wheel (1913) – – –
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aim: to provoke & expose hypocrisy of avant garde reliance on formula effect: subversive definition of originality method: “Conceptual” • creative process antithetical to artistic skill • manipulator of context rather than forms or objects narrative: absurd forms: functionally opposite • bicycle wheel moves/rotates • stool stationary composition: verticality implies human being • bicycle wheel head & neck • stool lower torso & legs word play: mildly obscene • “stool” scatological
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Duchamp •
Fountain (1917) –
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exhibition history: controversial • rejected by Society of Independents (NYC); hidden behind a screen photographed by Alfred Stieglitz • only remaining record of original object, which was discarded • reproduced w/ anonymous manifesto following May whose accompanying text made claim that became crucial to later 20C modern art: – "Whether [the artist] made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view -created a new thought for that object."
Duchamp •
Fountain –
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form: traditional • subverted into misdescribed piece of sanitary equipment narrative tone: scatological word play: false signature (alter ego) • comes from Mott Works, name of large sanitary equipment manufacturer • D altered it to Mutt, after daily cartoon strip 'Mutt and Jeff' with which public was familiar • anticipates D’s adoption of alter ego Rrose Sélavy a few years later medium: ‘Ready-Made’ • a.k.a. “found object” • bought from NYC plumbing supplier • mass-produced • taken out of context and deprived of original function composition: inverted • becomes functional as toilette for women (relate to gender boundaries)
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Duchamp
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L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) –
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medium: “assisted ready-made” • retouched poster of Mona Lisa • adds moustache & goatee (graffiti) aesthetic: iconoclastic • attacks icon of old culture • no use for person of “sensibility” to take refuge in beauty pun: “L.H.O.O.Q.” • pronunciation of sounds of letters (French) mildly obscene – “She’s got a hot ass”
Duchamp •
Large Glass (1913-23) –
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significance: summarizes D's view that painting & sculpture incompatible and inadequate as art forms to reflect contemporary cultural life subtitle: Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even? context: theoretical writings of Henri Poincaré • laws believed to govern matter created solely by minds that "understood" them • no theory could be considered “true” meaning: D tolerated any interpretation of his art by regarding it as creation of person who formulated it, not as truth process: extensive preparatory drawings, writings, and studies narrative: intricate mechanical diagram materials: unconventional composition: two large panels • glass planes placed one above the other spatial order: • top panel 2-d • bottom panel illusionistic method: incorporates effects of randomness/chance color: monochromatic
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Francis Picabia (1879-1953) •
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Biography: – born in Paris of French mother and SpanishCuban father – father attaché at Cuban legation in Paris – mother died of TB when he was seven – financially independent; inherited money from his mother training: – late 1890s: École des Arts Decoratifs – where Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec had also studied
Picabia •
Here, This Is Stieglitz Here (1915) –
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exhibition history: Stieglitz’s legendary Gallery 291 • collaborate on Dada publication 291 in which Here first appeared aesthetic: “machine” portrait • referencing Duchamp's machinist aesthetic as well as ironic wit • depicts Stieglitz as broken camera w/ automobile brake attached to it in motion aim: did not celebrate hyper-mechanized culture of early20C meaning: how mechanized symbols articulate seemingly opposed values of an individual's sensibility typography: P has written "Ideal" in Gothic font whose delicate, highly detailed script contrasts w/ modern-day, sleek machine upon which it perches • addresses S's own idealism • failed to inspire Americans toward selfdiscovery through art and photography
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Jean Arp (1887-1966) • • • • •
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biography: training: definition: Dadaism is a “revolt of the unbelievers against the misbelievers” aim: “Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother’s womb” method: free association & chance – desire for liberation from so-called rationality – way to remove artist’s will from creative act – represented fundamental law of organic realm style: abstract – flat pattern – curvilinear contours – pure bright color effect: maximum expressiveness w/ elementary forms
Arp Laws of Chance (1915) •
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aim: free of human intervention and closer to nature – to divorce his work from “the life of the hand” method: chance operations – make collages by dropping pieces of torn paper on floor and arranging them on a piece of paper more or less the way they had fallen forms: irregular composition: irregular spatial order: flattened
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Arp Forest (1917) –
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“constellations” • painted wooden wall reliefs • process – first identifies a theme – then recombines these elements into different configurations forms: abstract & biomorphic • evocations of plant and animal forms on layered wooden panels • evoke metamorphosis and change inherent to cycle of life • curvilinear; free from restrictions of straight lines • colorful and witty
Arp
Human Concretion (1935) – – –
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scale: large style: nonfigurative form: biomorphic • seems to grow organically • suggest general processes of growth, crystallization, and metamorphosis, rather than specific motifs drawn from nature process: traditional • modeled in clay or plaster surface texture: smooth
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Arp Head and Shell (1933) – –
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title: suggests counterparts in nature process: “Each of these bodies has a definite significance, but it is only when I feel there is nothing more to change that I decide what each means, and it is only then that I give it a name” form: biomorphic scale: small • multiple elements that the viewer could pick up, separate, and rearrange into new configurations composition: • not one continuous form but two separable elements • spike attached to the base section supports the upper portion, which may easily be removed. • a unit composed of discrete parts
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) • •
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training: Dresden Academy of Art significance: 20C’s greatest master of collage – assemblages from scraps of refuse – “Merz” from “commerce” – mastery of colour – juxtapositions • abstraction and realism • aesthetics and rubbish • delicate balance between content and form • intricate interplay of coarse and filigree exhibition history: – Sturm Gallery in Berlin (1918) – Sturm Gallery (mid-1919) • abstract Merz works & whimsical Dada drawings • caused a furore among the critics – thrived on public opposition – from 1919 to 1923 created succession of Merz pictures
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Schwitters
• Merz w/ Light Center (1919) – medium: painted collage – aesthetic: non-objective – juxtaposition: aesthetics vs. rubbish – spatial order: flattened – composition: dynamic – color: complimentary – light/shadow: fractures forms – word play: derived from Synthetic Cubist prototypes
(Left) Carrà’s Futurist Interventionist Demonstration (1914) vs. (right) Schwitters’ Dada Merz w/ Light Center (1919)
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(Left) Kandinsky’s German Expressionist Composition IV (1911) vs. Schwitters’ Dada Merzpicture w/ Rainbow (1939)
Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971) • •
cofounder of Berlin Dada movement in 1917 creator of photomontage – adapted Cubist idea of collage to new purpose – art of arranging and gluing photographs, advertisements or other found illustrative material onto a surface – puzzling or strikingly incongruous juxtapositions of images and letters – subversive because they were made of litter (e.g., bus tickets, sweet wrappings and other scraps)
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Hannah Hoch (1889-1978) •
context: Weimar Republic – post-WWI Germany – addressing fears and hopes for modern German women – dramatic redefinition of • gender & social roles of women • cultural representations of women & sexuality
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medium: photomontages – adapted Cubist idea of collage to new purpose – art of arranging and gluing photographs, advertisements or other found illustrative material onto a surface – puzzling or strikingly incongruous juxtapositions of images and letters – subversive because made of litter (e.g., bus tickets, sweet wrappings and other scraps)
Hoch
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Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar BeerBelly Cultural Epoch in Germany – – – – – – – –
date: 1919 medium: photomontage aesthetic: influenced by friendship w/ Hausmann significance: marks earnest involvement w/ Berlin Dadists spatial order: divorced from reality composition: chaotic color: see Analytical Cubism narrative: fractured
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Hoch • Beautiful Girl (1920) – subject: juxtaposes images reflecting upon certain optimism for technology and its relationship to modern woman – figure: clad in a modern bathing suite with a light bulb for her head – pose: seated on a steel girder, surrounded by various images of industrialization – background: silhouette of woman’s head w/ cats eyes • lurks behind the scenes staring out at audience
Hoch • Dada Ernst (1920) – medium: photomontage – theme: role of women in new Weimar society • unsettling view • women’s sexuality under watchful eye of male gender • addresses hopes and fears of new woman • juxtaposes modern images of mental (re: machinery) vs. woman’s flesh – forms: • pair of legs w/ money and a man’s eye placed between them are main focus • bow like machine links money with a gymnast modern athletic woman • bare backed woman playing a trumpet
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Hoch •
Monument at the Ethnographic Museum (1924) – –
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juxtaposes primitive sculpture w/ body parts of the modern German woman figure: • woman’s trunk • flattened stylized breast from African sculpture • body parts of a woman • arm of a man • three legs – trouser/pant leg – dancer’s leg – unidentified leg • head digs her chin into her chest w/ clenched arms pose: variation on [Classical] contrapposto meaning: enigmatic
IMAGE INDEX • • •
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TZARA, Tristan. Poster for Dada Movement (c. 1917). Photograph of DUCHAMP. DUCHAMP, Marcel. Nude Descending Stairs (1912), oil on canvas. DUCHAMP, Marcel. Bicycle Wheel (1915). DUCHAMP, Marcel. Fountain (1917), Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. DUCHAMP, Marcel. L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), Color reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa altered with a pencil, 7 3/4 x 5 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. DUCHAMP. Large Glass: Bride Stripped Bare (1915-23), metal and glass construction, height 9’. Photograph of Francis PICABIA. PICABIA, Francis. Here, This Is Stieglitz Here (1915), Pen, brush and ink, and cut and pasted printed papers on paperboard 29 7/8 x 20 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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IMAGE INDEX • •
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Photograph of Jean ARP. ARP, Jean. Laws of Chance (1916-17). Torn-and-pasted paper on blue-gray paper, 19 1/8 x 13 5/8" (48.5 x 34.6 cm), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. ARP, Jean. Forest (1917), Painted wood relief, 34 x 23 1/8 x 2 3/8 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. ARP, Jean. Human Concretion (1933), 22” x 31” x 21”, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland. ARP, Jean. Head and Shell (1933), Polished brass, 19.7 cm high, Peggy Guggenheim Collection. SCHWITTERS, Kurt. L’Oeil Cacodylate (1919). SCHWITTERS, Kurt. Picture with Light Center (1919), Painted collage, 33 1/4 x 25 7/8 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. (Left) Carrà’s Futurist Interventionist Demonstration (1914); and (right) Schwitters’ Dada Merz w/ Light Center (1919).
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(Left) Kandinsky’s German Expressionist: Blue Rider Composition IV (1911); and (right) Schwitters’ Merzpicture w/ Rainbow (1939), Assemblage, 61 3/8 x 47 5/8 in., Private Collection. HAUSMANN, Raoul. The Art Critic (1919-20), Photomontage and collage, 12 3/8 x 9 7/8 in., Tate Gallery, London. HOCH, Hannah. Self Portrait (1926), Photograph. HOCH, Hannah. Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919), collage of pasted papers, 144 x 90 cm., Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. HOCH, Hannah. Beautiful Girl (1920). HOCH, Hannah. Dada Ernst (1920). HOCH, Hannah. Monument I (1924).
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