Dadaism; the most influential force of postmodernism, discuss.

I've always wondered what people, who don't neccessarily have an artistic education.
For those who don't know what it is; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadaism.

For those who do know, what do you think? What's more groundbreaking than dada?

Dada is the single most influential XX century artistic movement.
It is the very definition of avantgarde.
Work of people like Marcel Duchamp... it is like he, Duchamp, took a hammer and smashed old definitions of art into tiny pieces. From exhibition of Fountain onwards everything could be regarded as work of art... if artist wishes so. Artist only needs to take something, put it into new context, sign it and you have new work of art.
I don`t love dada but I have a lot of respect for it.

You think it's infleunce is over? You said XX century. Which is impressive, considering it only lasted for 5 years.

I think we owe dada a lot. It was a first attempt to break through the absurdity of WW1. It might have been the first genuine 20th century movement in arts.

XX century art indeed owes dada a lot. About 2nd part of post at first I disagreed, but then I thought about it some more and, well, you`re right. Previous art movements like cubism, fovism or expressionism, early work of Picasso or Braque can be seen as evolution of postimpressionism; cubism evolution of Cezanne`s work, expressionism evolution of Van Gogh`s work (among other people) etc. Dada is indeed genuinely new; it has no predecessors. I don`t have enough knowledge to say anything about its influence now. I forgot much since school.

I simply cannot stand Dada. Especially its so called poetry... Reason and logic did not lead to World War I, weird collages of random items do not look good, and "gadji beri bimba glandridi lauli lonni cadori..." is not a poem! It just seems like the collective rejection of anything that makes sense or is aesthetically pleasant. I also find it kind of ironic that a movement against "against this world of mutual destruction" would be so hideously destructive.

The Caravane



The first word "jolifanto" resembles "joli éléfant" (nice elefant). "Habla horem" could pass for a Spanish-Latin wordplay. "Égiga" has something of Sumerian. "Bosso" is Italien, isn't it? "'Wulla wussa" could be an adulteration of a swiss phrase.

Maybe known:

Originally Posted by Frédéric Chopin

I simply cannot stand Dada. Especially its so called poetry... Reason and logic did not lead to World War I, weird collages of random items do not look good, and "gadji beri bimba glandridi lauli lonni cadori..." is not a poem! It just seems like the collective rejection of anything that makes sense or is aesthetically pleasant. I also find it kind of ironic that a movement against "against this world of mutual destruction" would be so hideously destructive.

I think you accuse Dadaism of being Dadaism there because those features were inherent parts of this art form (rejection of anything previously defined as aesthetic, logical, positive).

If it was the biggest leap of the 20th century I don't want to judge. Such statements are overhyped in arts. In a way it was a logical progression of moderne art into abstraction introduced by cubism, expressionism and similar movements before it. It simply subjected everything to this abstraction and followed a subversive idea whereas former art movements were more traditional in that matter.

Originally Posted by Frédéric Chopin

I simply cannot stand Dada. Especially its so called poetry... Reason and logic did not lead to World War I, weird collages of random items do not look good, and "gadji beri bimba glandridi lauli lonni cadori..." is not a poem! It just seems like the collective rejection of anything that makes sense or is aesthetically pleasant. I also find it kind of ironic that a movement against "against this world of mutual destruction" would be so hideously destructive.

Hurray someone understands dadaism. You could call the ethic antihumanist-humanism. It's not liking or not liking. They called taste "the greatest enemy of all art". It's also a joke, so don't take anything seriously.

I don't know a whole lot about Dada, I just know I like it.

That's the spirit.

I think you accuse Dadaism of being Dadaism there because those features were inherent parts of this art form (rejection of anything previously defined as aesthetic, logical, positive).

Yeah, you're right, but I just find those features utterly repulsive. And as someone who sees logic and reason as the best way to solve problems I don't know how else to argue against it.

They called taste "the greatest enemy of all art".

Sounds like a cheap excuse to make pointless, ugly art.

I don't know a whole lot about Dada, I just know I like it.

My initial response to Dada was the complete opposite.

They called taste "the greatest enemy of all art". Sounds like a cheap excuse to make pointless, ugly art.

Ok, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But lets go along with it. Yeah it's cheap material and it's ugly. It's meant to be cheap and ugly, it's about the concept. Creation in its basest form is art;cave paintings, ceremonial ancient weapons etc, BUT "art" was reserved only for artists but not craftsmen, factory workers, mechanics. They were pointing to an untouched dilema: WHY?
That's just a small part of dadaism, I'm just outlining the point of the cheap ugly finished pieces that have become almost like posterboys of dadaism.

I am not a huge fan of Dada but I do respect it a lot mostly because in my art form Dada had little to no effect on it but it was a major influence for one of the biggest movements of the 20th C the surrealists and absurbists which are some of my favourite forms

Yeah you're right, it can't exist in a vacuum. To make sense in todays world you have to have knowledge of the transitonal artforms from then to now.

Havn't studied too much relating to dada rather more German Expressionism which obviously isn't the same but carries many of the hallmarks of such theories and movements. Wrote a essay on it actually, very interesting the types of new artistic movements the surfaced during those war times.

Yeah extreme simplification of basic forms was the basic hallmark of european painting then. Pretty interesting stuff.