Dada: Art and Anti-Art
“I am neither for nor against and I do not
explain because I hate common sense.”
Tristan Tzara, “Dada Manifesto, 1918”
Dada, Defined
“a movement of the mind” (GR-D, 124)
 “the art of sacrilege” (RD, 130)
 “the organized struggle against logic” (Tzara, 134)
 a response to World War I : “Dada took the offensive and
attacked the social system in its entirety, for it regarded
this system as inextricably bound up with human
stupidity, the stupidity which culminated in the
destruction of man by man, and in the destruction of his
material and spiritual possessions” (Tzara, 135)

Dada’s Goals
“The activity of Dada
was a permanent revolt of
the individual against art, against morality, against
society…It aimed at the liberation of the individual
from dogmas, formulas, and laws, at the
affirmation of the individual on the plane of the
spiritual; it may even be said the the movement
liberated the individual from the mind itself,
placing the genius in the same rank as the idiot.”
(G R-D, 125)
Destruction and/or Creation
 “The real
question was the destruction of values…Man is
unable to destroy without constructing something other
than what he is destroying. Consequently, though Dada
had the will and the need to destroy every form of art
subject to dogma, it felt a parallel need of expressing
itself. It was necessary to replace submission to reality
by the creation of a _superior reality_; to pursue the work
of God without taking it seriously.” (G R-D, 125)
Affirmation and/as Negation
 “To liberate
man seemed to them more desirable than to
know how one ought to write…It was not enough to kill
art, which is always like itself, even when one intended
to compromise everything in order to avoid becoming
attached. Perpetual freedom from attachments and the
destruction of their own idols when they began to be
cumbersome…They were haunted by the usefulness of
life itself. To revolt against life! But there is only one
wonderful remedy: suicide.” (G R-D, 126)
Agonism
Dada’s
against itself: “Either Dada would have to
become crystallized into an activity perpetually
the same, through creation of a Dadaist art, a
Dadaist form of expression—or else, the better to
negate, it would have to negate Dada: the better
to destroy, it would have to destroy itself.
Anti-Art
Cubist Collage
as Anti-Art? Leger’s “Machine
Aesthetic as Anti-Art?
Futurism: “The Variety Theater destroys the
Solemn, the Sacred, the Serious in Art with a
Capital A. It cooperates in the Futurist destruction
of immortal masterworks, plagiarizing them,
parodying them, making them looking common
place…” (F.T. Marinetti, 13)
Anti-Art
 “The young
men who came to believe in the necessity of
revolt were primarily poets and writers, in league with
several painters. Consequently, the media of art bore the
brunt of their attack. Language and form fell beneath
their blows like so many houses of cards…Nothing is
made out of nothing; in other words, replacing the
cubism, futurism, and simultaneism that had nourished
them, they smashed [those] forms…
G R-B, 125
Dada vs. Cubism
“Dada
was opposed to Cubism on the ground
that Cubism tended, in its finished work, to
express an immutable and static beauty, while
everything in Dada stresses its occasional,
circumstantial nature, the real aim of art being
integration with the present-day world. With Dada
the work serves only as an identification. Poetry
is defined as a reality which is not valid aside
from its future.” (Tzara, 136)
Dada vs. Futurism
 “One must
destroy syntax and scatter one’s nouns at
random…Detroy the ‘I’ in literature; that is, all
psychology.” (F.T. Marinetti, “Technical Manifesto”
 “Is Poetry necessary? I know that those who write most
violently against it unconsciously desire to endow it with
a comfortable perfection, and are working on this project
right now; -they call this hygienic future. The contemplate
the annihilation (always immanent) of art. At this point
they desire more artistic art. Hygiene becomes purity
oGodoGod” (Tzara, 144)
Marcel Duchamp and the ReadyMade
New York
Dada (1915-1920): Alfred Stieglitz,
Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Arthur Cravan,
Duchamp
“He has found a sublime compromise which
obviates the need for self-destruction.” (Richter
167).
Irony vs. Arthur Cravan
Readymades
 “The readymade
was a logical consequence of
Duchamp’s rejection of art and of his suspicion that life
was without meaning.” Richter, 163
 “With Picabia the words “Art is Dead” seem always to be
followed by a faint echo: “Long live Art.” With Duchamp
the echo is silent. And that is not all: this silence renders
meaningless any further inquiry into art. Art has been
‘thought to a conclusion’; in other words eliminated.
Nothing, nihil, is all that is left.” Richter, 16
Duchamp, “Fountain,” 1915
Questions for Group
 Produce
a reading, as a group, of Duchamp’s “Fountain.”
What kind of a statement about art is this? Is this as
radical as Richter suggests? (“This silence renders
meaningless any further inquiry into art.”)
 How might Walter Benjamin respond to “Fountain”?
 If you wanted to destroy art by making “anti-art,” how
would you do this? What understandings of the work of
art would “anti-art” have to attack?
Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913
Duchamp, Snow Shovel
Duchamp, Bottle-Rack 1915
Duchamp, “Fountain,” 1915
Duchamp, “L.H.O.O.Q.,” 1919
Sherrie Levine, “Fountain (After
Marcel Duchamp, A.P.),” 1991,
bronze