Dada
The
name Dada is deliberately meaningless and was given
to an international anti-art movement that
flourished from 1915 to 1922. Its main centre of
activity was the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, where
like-minded poets, artists, writers and musicians
would gather to participate in experimental
activities such as nonsense poetry, 'noise music' and
automatic drawing. Dada was a violent reaction to the
snobbery and traditionalism of the art establishment.
A typical Dada work of art was the ready-made,
essentially an ordinary object taken from its
original context and exhibited as art. The Dada
movement, with its cult of the irrational, had an
important influence on Surrealism
in the
1920s.
Representative
painters:
Arp,
Duchamp, Hausmann, Man Ray, Picabia,
Schwitters