Art for Monkeys - A Guide for the Un-Elite

Today’s Lesson: Who’s your DADA?
By Aperturius
(with much assistance from the art-historical sponge, Future)

Many of us writers here at MvsR like to think of ourselves as artists - forward thinking, creative, intelligent, caffeine-addicted, moody, paranoid.  And each of us fit the mold on at least three of those points, anyway.  This is why our humble website proudly announces to our six readers the creation of a new series of articles, Art for Monkeys, dedicated to the edumacation of the masses about the topsy-turvy history of art across the globe.  As we (or maybe just I) like to say: Art - it’s not just an elitist exercise in pseudo-cerebral excess anymore.  Myself, Future, and any other MvsR writers who care to throw their two cents in - wink wink, nudge nudge - will tell the tales of various artists, art movements, mediums, and anything else that pops into our heads that seems to somehow relate to the fine art world.  Stay tuned for more informative, highly readable articles such as “Jackson Pollock’s Drunken Art Tips,” and “Bob Ross: Modern Day Da Vinci, or Happy Little Art Criminal?” Today, though, we tackle a group of misfits not unlike ourselves, the Dadaists.

“Dada” is not only what very young artists call their fathers while they scrawl on the walls in crayon; it also means “hobbyhorse” in French and “yes yes” in Slavic.  So of course, its meaning as the title of an art movement is obvious: it has no meaning.  It’s nonsense, just like the “fair and balanced” slogan of Fox News is nonsense.  But just like Fox News, a lot of people fell for Dadaism and considered it the most important, relevant art movement of its time, much to the amusement of the artists involved in it.

Let me set the scene.  It’s the 1920’s, and things, as a whole, are a mess.  World War I had just ended, and many of Europe’s writers, artists, and performers, always on the search for something new to rebel against, decided that this would be the best time to simply rebel against EVERYTHING.  Political structure, bourgeois attitudes, even art itself was not safe from this batch of upstarts who came to the sudden conclusion that everything is nothing, and all of this nothing is utterly ridiculous.  It’s like when you’re losing badly at Monopoly (like I always am), and suddenly you realize that, hey, this isn’t real money!  And these hotels, these hotels are waaaaay too small for anyone to sleep in!  This game is complete horseshit, and all of YOU are utter asshats for trying so hard to win!  I HATE YOUUUUU!!!…and then you fling the board game across the room, set fire to the money and swallow the little pewter automobile.  This is the essence of Dada, the world’s first anti-art art movement.

Dada had its beginnings in a little shack named Club Voltair in Zurich, Switzerland, but soon spin-offs were born in places such as Berlin and, of course, New York City.  One cannot take a course on the history of modern art without talking at length about a man named Marcel Duchamp, part of the New York camp of Dadaists.  Duchamp literally came up with an entirely new type of art medium - the “readymade.” Here’s how it works, in five easy steps:
1. Go to a store.
2. Buy something.  The more normal and mass-produced it is the better.
3. Bullshit your way into getting in an art exhibit.  It helps to have another well-known artist who is a friend of yours, and to drop his name a lot.  If he’s not your friend, drop his name anyway.
4. Place your object on a pedestal or against the wall in a clean, aesthetic manner.
5. Profit.
Duchamp’s most famous “ready-made” is a urinal.  Just an old, used, porcelain urinal which he cleverly named, “Fountain.” Critics and collectors ate it up, and the debate over whether or not this could be considered art made it even more famous.  Soon “replicas” of the urinal were being produced and sold to rich, stupid people, providing Duchamp with the funds necessary to purchase a shovel, a bicycle wheel, and a postcard of the Mona Lisa, upon which he scribbled a moustache and goatee and which underneath he wrote the initials, “L.H.O.O.Q.” (Say these letters in order in French and it sounds a lot like, “Elle a chaud au cul,” or, “She has a hot ass."), all of which he displayed while chuckling ironically under his breath.  Duchamp’s unexpected success paved the way for other New York Dadaists, including a man with the unlikely name of Man Ray. 

Man…err, Mr. Ray, was a photographer who tirelessly experimented with new techniques.  The idea of “craft” was not important to him.  He liked accidents and chance happenings.  You know how there is always one photograph you get back from the Wal-Mart lab that is blurry and has a finger in it and was obviously taken when you accidentally sat on your camera in the subway car?  Man Ray would have LOVED that photograph.  His style, or apparent lack thereof, was at the time very refreshing and liberating, a relief from all those impeccably composed and printed photographs of dramatic mountains and sappy portraits.  Here were strange shapes, skewed perspectives, and grainy images, all that up to this point were considered no-nos in photography.  But hey, this is Dada.  Anything goes.

Right at this point I feel I should mention a term that is thrown around a lot in art, and that fits in with this particular group: avant garde.  For the benefit of this article, I will just mention in basic terms that avant garde is a description for clever artwork (usually too clever for its own good) that screws with the status quo.  This goes on a lot in art and deserves its very own article, and I don’t want to talk about too many artists that don’t make any sense all at once.  But Dada is avant garde, and avant garde is Dada, and that’s all you need to know for now.

While the New York Dadaists were busy with nothing and getting paid for it, the groups in Europe were beginning to notice some frightening events.  You see, there was this little political group in Germany that was beginning to stir up.  They didn’t get much media attention and so you may not have heard of them, but they were called Nazis and they weren’t too pleasant to artists, Jews, or people in general who disagreed with them.  It’s easy to understand, therefore, why artists in Europe became nihilistic and cynical and used their artwork to express their disdain for the Third Reich, who only liked nice happy images of blond-haired, blue eyed “uber-people” standing on top of dead Jews and smirking.  Painters such as Otto Dix expressed the horrors of war and injustice.  Kurt Schwitters created boxed-in collages that evoked the disarray of bombed-out European cities.  And artists like George Grosz and John Heartfield created paintings and photomontages to ridicule Hitler and his cronies, propaganda that was much stronger than anything the Nazis churned out.  Of course, the Nazis were the ones with all the guns, so in the end they won out and most of the artists were forced to flee their homes.  One should never bring a paintbrush to a gunfight; it’s one of the first lessons every artist learns.

So eventually World War II ended and the world was a mess again, albeit one that was happier in its itchy skin.  Dada didn’t die but it faded away, only to be resurrected in new forms such as Surrealism, Pop Art, and the little animated skits you see on Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  Try to imagine life without that big foot squishing people.  Pretty dull, isn’t it?  The idea of art as nonsense continues as a theme today, as anyone who has seen Spongebob Squarepants can tell you.  And it’s a good thing, really.  When artists start to take themselves too seriously it makes it easier for everyone to poke fun at them, and that reduces the value of art as a whole.  And when that happens, I’ll never become wealthy.  This is purely unacceptable.

Images, in order of appearance:

Marcel Duchamp, “Fountain,” 1917/1964.
Marcel Duchamp, “L.H.O.O.Q.,” 1919.
Man Ray, “Untitled,” 1926.
John Heartfield, “Adolph, the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk,” c.1940.

Aperturius, nice article. I enjoy your take on art history, and can’t wait for more articles like it. Where are they? Feed my cravings now!

nicely done.  even to the point of understandabilityness.  that duchamp guy was one fucked up cookie, huh?!

nice work aperturius!  i can’t wait for the next chapter.  you’ve set a new high for mvsr.  :)

I find this article to be of real, Quality stuff. I am also fairly sure that Aperturius did not glean the information herein from his 20th Century Art History class as I am almost positive that he was asleep, just like the rest of the group...except for me; I was drinking Library Juice.

I Came across this little article while searching for information for my year 10 visual arts assignment… Very well written. Although, I don’t think mrs.Johns would accept any information I pull from this article, as nice as it is =P

Thanks for your help!

always a pleasure to read.
keep them coming!!!
my art teacher didnt explain dada as good as you..
but then again my art teachers a lost case.