DADAISM

What is Dadaism?
➢ The name “dada” is a French word meaning “ hobby horse” was
deliberately chosen because it was nonsense.
➢ Dadaism is an art movement which arose in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland, and
lasted until the mid 1920s. The movement was firmly planted within the avant-
garde, and staunchly rejected any norms of the artistic world at the time. Pure
Dada rebuffs reason, logic, and rationality in favor of chance. The movement is
explicitly political, representing extreme leftist views, primarily anarchism.
➢ Dadaism was a movement with explicitly political overtones – a reaction to
the senseless slaughter of the trenches of WWI. It essentially declared war
against war, countering the absurdity of the establishment's descent into chaos
with its own kind of nonsense.
The Art Critic by Raoul Hausmann, 1919-20, Tate Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last
Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany by
Hannah Höch, 1919-20, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin