Kunsthaus , 9 7?
a3/N
30-27
1953
(SB
i
Zurich
DADA vs. ART
The attitude of Dada toward
art is impregnated with that
equivocal spirit of which Dada
cultivated the ambiguity more
or less wilfully, and if the irrefu
table, imperative tone used by
Dada to impose its doubt is a
proof of its own dynamism, it is
in this very contradiction that
one finds the richness of Dada's
own nature.
Dada tried to destroy, not so
much art, as the idea one had
of art, breaking down its rigid
borders, lowering its imaginary
heights — subjecting them to
a dependence on man, to his
power — humbling art, signifi
cantly making it take its place
and subordinating its value to
pure movement which is also
the movement of life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The Sidney Janis Gallery wishes to thank Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp,
Charles R. Hulbeck and Jacques Levesque each for their enlightening forewords to the
catalog of the exhibition. We are indebted to Marguerite Hagenbach and Jean Arp for their
untiring efforts in assembling the European material. We wish to thank the participating
artists and the estates of the artists for making available rare works and acknowledge as
well the generosity of the following lenders: England: Edith Thomas; France: Anonymous;
W. Arp; Gabrielle Buffet; Simone Collinet; H. P. Roche; Tristan Tzara; Robert Valangay; Nellie
Van Doesburg; Herta Wescher; Germany: Anonymous; Carl Buchheister; Galerie Gerd Rosen;
Edouard Roditi; Walter Spengemann; Switzerland: Anonymous; Marguerite Hagenbach;
Carola Gideon-Welcker; United States: Anonymous; Erich Cohn; Katherine S. Dreier Estate;
Bernard Karpel; Josine Manson; Dorothy Miller; Sibyl Moholy-Nagy; Museum of Modern Art;
Kurt Seligmann; Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc.; Yale University Art Gallery. We also wish to ex
press our thanks to Charles R. Hulbeck and Hans Richter for their assistance in preparing and
hanging the Swiss and German sections. Especial gratitude goes to Marcel Duchamp under
whose direction the International Dada Exhibition was assembled, cataloged and installed.
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I comply with your desire, dear
Janis, to write you a few words
on the occasion of the opening
of the Dada show in your gal
lery, and like the actor who be
comes familiarized with the
role of a king, a tyrant, a crim
inal or a hero, I try to put my
self in unison with Dada of 3 7
years ago. It is not easy for I
have changed a great deal and
am ready today to believe in
angels and what was to me art at
that time, seems to me today to
be nature. But here is where my
role already begins, for nature
is Dada.
FOR THE LOVE OF DADA
Th is is an article for Dadaism and
not against Dadaism. This is an
attempt — and not the first one
from my side — to take DADA
seriously and reject the stupid
ities that have been said against
it.
Was not Art (with a capital AI
taking a privileged, not to say
tyrannical position on fhe lad
der of values, a position which
made it sever all connections
with human contingencies?
That is where Dada made its
anti-Art declaration. But inas
much as it was an expression of
the individual, Dada accepted,
even advocated the use of the
different plastic and poetic dis
ciplines. If Dada partly made of
this practice a Trojan horse to
penetrate into fhe inner sanc
tum, it is, nevertheless through
art realizations that Dada's
criticism toward the "spirit
ual" institutions can be re
vealed as well as its device of a
line of conduct and a general
ized conception of vital phe
nomena.
It should be noted—and this is a
What you see here is Dada. tralMbofrifnon to* all its fend
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DADA was one of the great
spiritual revolutions of our time.
It was a real revolution of the
spirit, of the mind and of the
soul, and it is this revolutionary
spirit that has kept it alive and
justifies this exhibition.
The Dada movement is tremendously im
portant. We live by it.
Jean Van Heeckeren.
DADA MAY BE CONSIDERED AS HAVING
TWO ASPECTS, ONE ENVELOPING THE
OTHER: THE DADA SPIRIT AND THE DADA
MOVEMENT.
THE DADA SPIRIT HAS ALWAYS EX
ISTED AND WILL ALWAYS EXIST. BUT
THROUGH THE AGES AND THROUGHOUT
THE WORLD THE MEN WHO POSSESSED IT
You also, handsome man, beau
tiful woman, you are Dada,
only you don’t know it yourself.
Tomorrow Dada will have a
different face from today and
encies—that the artistic means
of expression lose, with Dada,
their specific character. These
means are interchangeable,
they may be used in any form of
art and moreover may employ
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for that reason will be Dada — incongruous elements — materi-
Dada is life. Dada is that which ols noble or looked down upon,
changes (I would almost say the ver ^ a ^ cliches or cliches of old
perpetual change, the eternal
return, Heraclites). Dada is life
that will transform itself to-
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magazines, bromides, publicity
slogans, refuse, etc.—these in
congruous elements are trans
formed into an unexpected,
morrow and behave differently homogeneous cohesion as soon
from today. Dada is gay, sad, * he Y take P lace *" a newly
anti-Art, laughter, tears, con- cr ° ated enSe ” b f 0 fhe ond ejects of
sistent, inconsistent, extremely Mqx £rnsf gnd Schwifters musf
simple, extremely complicated, be a( /ded chance introduced by
practical, edible, heavy as lead, Marcel Duchamp as a source of
candy pink, square, venomous, creation (i.e. the broken glass I
DADA was no fun and it has
been thought of as fun only by
the people that think man's fate
is directed by comic strips.
DADA's fun — and here I re
veal a secret for the shirtless
ones of the spirit — was a self
ridicule with the purpose of self-
realization. The Dadaists were
the discoverers of the new per
sonality, and only the fact that
they were a few generations
ahea d of their time made it im
possible for others to under
stand them.
DADA was a spiritual and
psychological revolution whose
purpose was to find the NEW
MAN. With this purpose I wrote
the Fantastic Prayers, Schalaben,
the New Man and two dozen
DADA manifestos in Zurich and
in Berlin.
ARE EXTREMELY RARE. THIS IS NOT
STRANGE WHEN ONE REALIZES THAT THE
DADA SPIRIT, AS INDEFINABLE AS LIFE,
THOUGH IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS IDEN
TIFIABLE WITH LIFE ITSELF, CONDEMNS
INEXORABLY LITERATURE, ART, PHI
LOSOPHY, ETHICS, AND REASON, BECAUSE
IT BELIEVES THEM INEFFECTIVE, NOT
ONLY THEORETICALLY BUT ALSO FOR
THE PRETENTIOUSNESS OF THE MEN WHO
ARE THEIR HIGH PRIESTS AND EXPLOIT
ERS.
THE DADA MOVEMENT, WHICH HIS
TORICALLY WAS BORN IN 1916 AND CAME
TO AN END TOWARDS 1923, WAS THE
CONSCIOUS, EXTRAORDINARY, AND PAR
ADOXICALLY FRUITFUL EXPRESSION OF
THIS SPIRIT. SINCE LIFE’S MANIFESTA
TIONS ARE NEVER IDENTICALLY RE
PEATED, DUE TO-HE DIVERSITY OF CIR
CUMSTANCES, SUCH A MOVEMENT IS,
AND WILL REMAIN, UNIQUE IN THE HIS
TORY OF THOUGHT AND OF ART. IT IS
EXCEPTIONAL THAT SUCH A PLEIADE OF
INDIVIDUALS, WHOSE HORIZONS WERE
SO VARIED, SHOULD HAVE JOINED
FORCES EVEN FOR A WHILE IN SO UN
USUAL AN AFFIRMATION.
IT WAS IN FEBRUARY 1916, IN ZURICH,
THAT TZARA, HUGO BALL, HUELSENBECK,
ARP AND JANCO FOUND THE WORD DADA
AS THE SIGN OF THEIR MOVEMENT WHICH
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DADA was founded by peo
ple who hated war and they
fought against the militarists,
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All these paintings and sculp
ture, cigars, chairs, windows,
tables are Dada. Even you, Sid
ney Janis, you are Dada as were
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and the Readymades, sort of
collages of a reality super
imposed upon the reality of
things which no longer need the
confrontation with other ob-
Mary Wigman, Duchamp, Pic- jects to bring out the efficacy of
abia, Man Ray, Ball before the the processes of transformation
word” Dada existed. But “In of the significance in images.
the beginning was the word,” It if a known fact that the Fu-
that is to say in 1916 A.D. (anno
WAS TO EXPAND IN 1918 AFTER THE AR-
RIVAL IN SWITZERLAND OF PICABIA —
(THE LATTER HAVING BROUGHT TO THE
GROUP THE DUCHAMP-PICABIA SPIRIT,
AS IT WAS SO RIGHTLY CALLED BY
, - 1*4. U PIERRE DE MASSOT, WHO PARTICIPATED
conventionalists, bourgeois !N THE movement, and BY GEORGE
within themselves. The Cabaret hugnet, in his essays on dada? a
Vnltair^ with its drunken student SPIR,T EXTREMELY FREE, AND DESTRUC-
voiTaire wirn its drunken student ALL conventions, a spirit
audience was nothing but a sym- born before 1914 IN PARIS — WHERE,
AMONG YOUNG POETS AND PAINTERS,
DURING THE TWO YEARS THAT PRECEDED
THE WAR, AN ATMOSPHERE OF REVOLT
DADA was a psychological against all conventions was in the
j IU. I , • 11 . I AIR and was developing particu-
and literary revolution.lt wanted UNDER THE violent AND sum-
to change the world by magic, ulating impetus OF CENDRARS and
or better bv maaic words With CRAVAN, AND UNDER THE MORE DIS-
or oener oy magic woras. vvim crete , NFLUENCE 0F APOLLINAIRE,
this purpose I shouted my poems spokesman of THE CUBISTS AND OF
against and into the audience L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU — A SPIRIT WHICH
£ . L r' L. 1 \/ 11 'A rah A ASSERTED ITSELF BRILLIANTLY IN BAR*
of the Cabaret v'oltaire. DADA CE lona, and new YORK IN 1915-1916
was not the invention of one AND 1917, SPECIFICALLY IN PICABIA’S
nersnn hut a oeneral revolt of MAGAZINE 391 AND WHICH IN NEW YORK
person but a general revolt ot wH£RE ouchamp AND PICABIA MET
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Moreover the Dadaist is some
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Dada). Dada, in one ivmd, is oe / ver ,; s ; n g i 0 mo( / ern ph e - the artistic personality all over kgai^ combined very effectively
liberty. Every Dadaist can sing nomenon, as plastic elements or the world aqainst the shacklinq with the interests of man rat at
and say anything he likes with- poetic values. Dada. on the G f fh e spirit and the threat ISEisBE^G^^EtcH^G^ys^E^K m
out the risk of being hanged, other hand, made use ot public aga ; ns+ freedom of the creative JraUce as of ISIS, after the meeting
tlrn rinrlnnrt a r ity HOT OS Of? O/jDf, 0/1 allusion - I- - I I HADA \A/ A C W & rMn rr=» Of PICABIA AND BRETON, TZARA’S AR*
nor as a material applicable to maividua!was heretor ® rival in PARIS, and the combination
different aims. Dada actually against all mass solutions, all of these forces with those repre-
used these forms of advertise■ sociological solutions and SENTED by the men grou,,ed l A ,? e °£ a N t D UR E, the magazine directed
ments as a reality at the ser- against all political solutions. by ARAGON, BRETON AND SOUPAULT,
saying that Marcel Janco, Hans vice of its own publicity. DADA has fouqht for the where lautreamont and rimbaud
Richter and Sophie Taeuber Schwitter-s constructivist peri- rights of the individual against $( ER E E RE ""peareS'us UTMS Te
also belonged; and furthermore a '' YhTconceltiJn 11 anything that could have sup- GUERRE of JACGUES vache (WHO died
everyone in his inner self wants n „ .J H concepTion or DADA had and has mysteriously at the beginning OF
Dada • ^ pressed it. uaua nad a |g|g) AN[J WH|C|| HAD AS collabor-
Moreover Dada, rather than nothing to do with Marxism, ators eluard, peret, ribemont-des-
(Dear Sidney Janis, don’t for merely advocating the use of Communism, Mesmerism, Pugil- saignes and Jacques rigaut (THE
goodness’ sake stride about your means outside of their intrinsic • Monotheism Monoaamism DADA DANDY WH0 COMMITTED SUICIDE
n •,/ um. MMu L aim* /ha rnnhiciAn ism ‘ MonoTneism ' Monogamism |N (92g)j and shortly thereafter
gallery with the winged step of meaning, aims at the confusion ^ Q ^ er | smS( even if they are MAX ERNST who arrived in PARIS IN
n Irm / Il/irlna tar • fu/urr -rn r-i 'ii ot genres ana Tms is in my opin- >fISfi r r- • < r , tan acted uauimr di Avcn a i adrc
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a troubadour; your visitdrs will of genres and this IS in my opin-i fp- : 1 nre f erence |; s+ 022 after having plated a large
ion. one ot its essential charac- onmeomaai preference mst. mrt THE DADA MANIFE stations
teristics, lmanifesto-paintings DADA is a conspiracy ot ma- and exhibitions in cologne from 1918
have eyeronly for you and not
for our “beaux arts”!)
or poems of Picabia, photo- gicians and does not necessarily TO 1920 with baargeld AND ARP; FOR
All is Dada and Dada does montages of Hearth eld simul- have anything to do with art. But DADA LT ACTmTY Y Wl ™ ™ E STAGES 0F
not end in the Institute
Mummification where all is
brown and thespalls are all
ccmmed. Dada 'does not even
finish in the “Beaux Arts” Mu
seum where the brown ‘‘master
pieces” of wgich the prices cm
of taneous poems with phonetic
orchestration, etc.I While it is
evident that the use of different
materials derives from the Cub
ists, it is not solely the same
reasons of plasticity which
come into consideration in fhe
case of Dada. The polemical
IN NEW YORK, BAR
if p- decides to go into art, it celona, Paris, and Zurich (where
sides with The UNCONVEN
TIONAL or an Irt that has noth
ing to do with the Sunday after-
THE CONTRIBUTION OF DR. SERNER AND
THE ACTIVITY OF RICHTER IN 1919
SHOULD BE NOTED) DADA ASSERTED IT
SELF VERY FORCEFULLY IN GERMANY:
, IiL BESIDES COLOGNE, IN BERLIN FROM 1918
noon pleasure ot tne citizen nor T0 (920 W | TH huelsenbeck, HAUS-
ha f s it anything to do with the likes MANN, GROSZ, HEARTFIELD AND BAADER,
dlcl;® M The er+ menezIneQ AND ALS0 ,N HANOVER AS OF 1919 WITH
Ub incessanimcoverAhe walls meaning attached to the object ^ l f , an magazines. KURT SCHW itters CREATOR OF MERZ,
u^j in^essamiy, court tne wain u ^ ,* nrior Woc ^ r ; nf ; ve rtr DADA when it is artistic^ is nec- a word and movement corollary to
and bring to the owners r of such
brown objects a joy that ap
is no longer descriptive or ex
planatory but included in its
essarily aqainst the heavy con- °ADA.
y ^ 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF PAINTERS IN THE
proaches mental alienation like
the folly of grandeur wake^
the dictators, bloodthirsty
stincts.
Dada is cheap and dear, like
life. Dada gives itself for noth
ing, for priceless.
JEAN ARP
Basle, January,
'IjHpfreel DuchampM
■ » , , . , . r .11 .| inc imruniHnuc ur rt
own conception in the same tents ot an ill-conceived roman- development of dada is OF PRIME
way, to a certain extent, as ticism. It is for space and time, CONSIDERATION, AND IT IS PROBABLY IN
movement, definiteness and a
Heraclites' demonstrations are
THE FIELD OF PLASTIC CREATION, BE
CAUSE THEY ARE LIBERATED FROM THE
MEANING OF WORDS, THAT ONE CAN
FIND THE MOST CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF
THE DADA SPIRIT. ALTHOUGH, AS MAR-
233. K f°™ . gg re„ion ,ha,
takes fhe form of a $4jtirP*4j& : jfy/- j| . Biggs I . I . inc umum ormn. HLinuuun, mo mMn-
mor, ne/fhef white nor black, losophers and theologians, arro- cel duchamp says “the dada move-
which is an attitude of mind, a qance by otners and — thank ment, in itself a METAPHYSICAL
manifestation of the true reality 0 OC J.— madnefs by psychiatric ATTEMPT toward the irrational,
of things, a particular way of nondescripts .
envisaging them. t M' T n j • ± j i
Dada never preached, having 1 was a Dadais |, and 1 W|M a
no theory to defend; it showed ways be one. I shall not care who
truths in action and it is as ac- is against me or for me. I shared
that what is commonly fhe extraordinary experience of
coiled art will, henceforth have pi erc j n g fhe wall of stupidity
that made the year 1916 ripe
for the Cabaret Voltaire. I salute
to be considered.
Dada advocated the confusion
of genres as one of the most ef-
hcacious means of qivinq some my old collaborators in Zurich LAGES, and objects of picabia, du
play to Art, to this rigid edifice,
taken also as play, to this mon
grel notion used to cover, be
hind a sham disinterestedness
i n |- | i . Mm« R a || CHAMP, MAN RAY, ARP, MAX ERNST, AND
and Berlin. I salute Hugo Ball, SC hwitters, for EXAMPLE, DEMON-
Emmy Hennings, Marcel Janco, strate this clearly, consequently,
— “ iPONENTS OF DESTRUCTION
CONSTRUCTED REAL WORKS
Hans Arp and others, names to J | h n e au p y roponents of DESTRUCTION
the lies and hypocrisy of so
ciety.
remember, and I leave out the
politicos who tried to benefit
One can therefore affirm that
the meaning of Dadaist works,
their value as examples took
precedence over all aesthetic
r moralizing preoccupation.
The
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OFFERED LITTLE POSSIBILITY FOR PAINT
ING” THE DADA PAINTERS SUCCEEDED IN
CREATING A PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION
OF THE DADA SPIRIT WHICH THEY WERE
ABLE TO MATERIALIZE. THIS WAS A REAL
FEAT, FOR NATURALLY THEY FELT
OBLIGED TO RENOUNCE ALL THE CONVEN
TIONS OF THE PLASTIC MEDIUM AND
THEY SET THEMSELVES RESOLUTELY
APART FROM ALL LAWS OF THE “BEAU
TIFUL” AND THE ACCEPTED VALUES IN
ART. THE PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, COL-
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WHICH EXIST. THESE WORKS POSSESS
AN IRREFUTABLE CHARACTER OF ORIG
INALITY SINCE THEY BEAR NO RESEMB
LANCE TO ANY OTHER PRODUCED UP TO
THAT TIME AND CANNOT VALIDLY BE
from the movement. There is
friendship forever and there is
hostility forever. DADA was so
great an explosion that one has
to have the courage to explode
others and to explode oneself,
if this is necessary. DADA LIVES.
RICHARD HUELSENBECK
confusion of genres was
not, in the case of Dada, a sort
of marriage between different
arts, as it was for Wagner who,
by juxtaposing them, left to
each one its specific nature.
Apollinaire's Orphism, aiming
at the essentials common to all
arts, did not go further than the
creation of a new expression
strongly impregnated with fu
turistic modernism. It is not in
vain that Dada always claimed
not to be modern. And yet far
from declaring itself partisan
of fhe old-fashioned, Dada
tended towards novelty by a
natural movement but denied
itself any formal novelty.
If, for Dada, surprise, which
Apollinaire advocated as an im
portant poetic factor, became
scandal, it was not to be used
as an art formula but as an
identification of Dada, scandal
itself, with its modus vivendi
and manifestations.
Dada's scorn
(Charles R. Hulbeck)
New York, March, 1953
PLACED IN ANY KNOWN CATEGORY; BUT
THEY ARE VERY MUCH A REALITY, HAV
ING PRECISELY THAT UNDENIABLE COM
MON CHARACTERISTIC: “TO BE DADA.”
IF BY THEIR INTRINSIC NATURE THEY DO
NOT GIVE ANY “ESTHETIC” SATISFAC
TION—EXCEPT OCCASIONALLY—THEY DO
OPEN UP NEW VISTAS, WITH FAR GREAT
ER DEPTH, TRULY BEYOND THE FIELD OF
ART. BECAUSE THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED IN
MAKING A CONCRETE THING OF THE IR
RATIONAL, IN A WAY THAT VISUALLY
QUESTIONS THE VALIDITY OF EVERY-
THING RATIONAL, A CERTAIN SHOCK MAY
RESULT FROM VIEWING THEM — A
SHOCK CAPABLE OF STARTLING THE RE
CIPIENT OUT OF THE MECHANICAL FUNC
TIONING OF HIS INTELLIGENCE, AND MAK
ING HIM “GRASP WITH HIS EYES,” SO TO
SPEAK, THE UNCERTAINTY OF HIS AC
CEPTED VALUES, WITH ALL THE CONSE
QUENCES THAT MAY ARISE FROM SUCH
AN AWARENESS.
JACQUES-HENRY LEVESQUE,
New York, March 1953
Translated by M. D. Clement
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for modernism
was based, above all, upon the
idea of relativity since any dog
matic codification could only
lead to a new academism. In
virtue of that, Dada did fight
against Futurism, Expression
ism and Cubism, declaring itself
for continual change and spon
taneity. Dada, wanting to be
constantly in motion and trans
formable, preferred to disap
pear rather than bring about
the creation of new pompiers.
Confusion of genres was for
Dada a postulate. If had to be
arbitrary and left to the haz
ards of invention and disposi
tion of mind. As yes was equal
to no, order and disorder found
unity in the momentary ex
pression of the individual. One
can see in this the aspiration of
Dada toward an indubitable
truth which was the truth of
man expressing himself outside
of formulas learned or imposed
by community, logics, language,
art and science. Dada was mak
ing its way towards a kind of
ethical absolute which, presup
posing an impossible purity of
intentions and sentiments, made
its aims akin to those of the
Romantics.
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By bringing an end to its own
activities Dada proved that, if
the experiment was to be justi
fied, its prolonged existence
would have been the very nega
tion of its profound nature. But
even its end was only relative.
Its growth into Surrealism and
beyond, through which its fer
tility in the spiritual domain was
amply asserted, gives enough
reasons for Dada's historic ne
cessity as a reflection of the
epoch as well as a link in the
long course of the transforma
tion of ideas.
TRISTAN TZARA,
Paris, January, 7953
Translated by Marcel Duchamp
