Dada
1915-1924
Young men and women, who were artists and writers converged in Zurich, Switzerland. Many of them were affected by war, the reason being why they all repositioned in the same place. These people were expressing their response to a world at war and the rising hysteria that surrounded it through deconstruction of conventions, and negative and anarchic forms. DADA was that expression of outrage from artists towards the war, as well as estrangement to those who encouraged it with nationalists and materialist beliefs. The leaders in this movement were: Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, poet Tristan Tzara (all German writers), sculptor and painter Marcel Janco, Jean Arp (painter, sculptor, and poet), painter and designer Sophie Taeuber, and painter and filmmaker Hans Richter. These artists of many different crafts attacked traditional Western art and literature through their art exhibitions, demonstrations, noise concerts (poetry readings), and writings. DADA artists and writers pursued wild imaginative humor that was present in all different forms of artistic creation that did not always have a rationale. Their aspirations were to reexamine the traditions, rules, logic, concept of order and coherence, and beauty that have always been a part of art. (History of Modern Art)
Many of the artists a part of the movement related to other styles and they were ahead of their time in their art. DADA affected post-modern and contemporary art with its release on expression to be free. Many designers created collages, photomontages, assemblage pieces, along with readymades.The Dadaists imitated the techniques developed during the cubist movement through the pasting of cut pieces of paper items but extended their art to encompass items such as transportation tickets, maps, plastic wrappers, etc. to portray aspects of life, rather than representing objects viewed as still life.The Dadaists – the “monteurs” (mechanics) – used scissors and glue rather than paintbrushes and paints to express their views of modern life through images presented by the media. A variation on the collage technique, photomontage utilized actual or reproductions of real photographs printed in the press. In Cologne, Max Ernst used images from World War I to illustrate messages of the destruction of war.The assemblages were three-dimensional variations of the collage – the assembly of everyday objects to produce meaningful or meaningless (relative to the war) pieces of work including war objects and trash. Objects were nailed, screwed or fastened together in different fashions. Assemblages could be seen in the round or could be hung on a wall. (historygraphicdesign)
Kurt Schwitters
Directly affected by the depressed state of Germany following World War I, and the modernist ethos of the Dada movement, Kurt Schwitters began to collect garbage from the streets and incorporate it directly into his art work. The resulting collages were characterized by their especially harmonious, sentimental arrangements and their incorporation of printed media. He actively produced artistic journals, illustrated works, and advertisements, as well as founding his own Merz journal. (theartstory)
Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann create ‘ABCD’ which is a typical Dada collage which he described as a ‘poster poem’. It is a visual counterpart to the Dada ‘sound-poems’ that were heard at the ‘Cabaret Voltaire’. In 1916 Hugo Ball proclaimed, “I created a new species of verse, ‘verse without words’, or sound poems….”. However, it would be more generous to attribute their inspiration to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti of the Italian Futurists and Hausmann acknowledges this debt by including the letters ‘VOCE’, the Italian word for voice. (artyfactory)
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a painter, sculptor, designer, and active member in the Zurich and Paris Dada movements and a multitude of other avant-garde art circles. She also danced and famously designed sets for Dada performances. Taeuber-Arp’s training in textile design came to inform her abstract paintings, which also bore the influence of Cubism. Some of her most iconic work is recognized for its austere geometric motifs, minimal aesthetic, and expression of her belief in the expressive power of form, line, and palette. She also produced more figural work in the mid-1930s, including a series of polychrome wooden heads and reliefs. Taeuber-Arp was married to Jean Arp, with whom she often collaborated. (artsy)
Design Movements 