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Trying to Write Myself into Not Hating Dada

Featuring r/im14andthisisdeep

By Alex BrownPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 3 min read
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So I should preface this with the note that in spite of the vitriol I am about to throw at an entire art movement, I do not have any less respect for the creativity or mastery of craft that arists who engage with this movemant possess.

They are keen artists who simply approach their work differently than I do

That being said, Dada is a terrible, awful, try hard of a non-art that puts itself above and better than people who call themselves artists while also forcing their way into their space to openly ridicule them for daring to enjoy things and I hate it.

(I think they're gonna need more context)

Fair enough.

Dada has it's inception after World War I, when countless people, so scarred and traumatized by bloodshed on that scale, that the art that had once inspired hope or a sense of beauty now seemed like just oil on canvass. A waste of time and energy when there was such mass suffering in the world. With this mindset, these (not really artists with that context, ugh...) creators endeavored to create a sort of anti-art. Something that would, rather than emotionally connect to the viewer of the piece, jar them and thus put them into a state of emotional confusion and turmoil.

(That sounds preety cool actually. You love existentialist art, why do you hate this so much?)

My issue with Dada could be leveled at it's juvenile approach to this.

In the same way a rebellious teenager may try to strike what they perceive as a hard blow against "The Man" but drawing a phallic cartoon on a whiteboard in Sharpie, the Dada-ists attempts to trigger a sense of unease in those who look upon them have no point or goal in mind, they are non-specifically angry at "Society", but not at institutions or specific peoples. Even their attempts at confusion induced dread only consist of drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa and reciting a monologue while drenched in honey of Winnie the Pooh engaging in BDSM. Artists already were creating pieces meant to make a viewer uncomfortable, and they had the benefit actually having a direct purpose and target. Francisco De Goya comes to mind, his art can be hard to look at and his was made to question the policies of Manuel Godoy or to show his suffering after having gone deaf. He did more than just hammer an apartment number plate onto a wooden bust and try to make it out like an "affront to good taste"

(Okay, i'm revoking your quotaion privileges)

You can't stop me, i'm literally writing you.

(Calm down. So you hate the motives behind it, you hate the lack of cohesive vision, and you hate the pretentiousness of thinking these things make Dada-ists above the pretense of the art world at the time. Is there anything you do like.)

What I do like is related to why I was taught about Dada in the first place.

Many Dadaists used their relative freedom to innovate new techniques and iconography. Without Dada we wouldn't have collage, and by extension our modern methods for graphic design and even layouts for newspaper may not exist. Many of the more thoughtful creators from this era would eventually leave to go on to the Surrealist movement, which is one of my favorite movements and actually accomplishes some of the goals that Dada strived for. Not to mention that the proliferation of all of this into the art scene meant that the art world had to adapt to the changing creative climate, which they had always been hesitant to. And this, in turn, would eventually lead to photography being more accepted as an art form.

(That sounds dope. So that's it? You like Dada now?)

Hell no.

Theres a reason Dada and Surrealism are considered separate movements despite having so much in common. Dada was little more than a proof of concept, and a learning period for the ideas and aesthetics that would go on to influence a century of art. Dada being it's own movement meant that the people creating it were ostensibly turning in unfinished work. A half-finished assignment that acts as little more than a thesis statement.

The sentiments that existed were as jumbled and confused in their meaning as the artists who were still trying to cope with a horrifc war and fast-changing world. The anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois seeds were planted. But rather than being given time to bear fruit, the creators served a plate of dirt and called it an apple.

So no, I still don't like Dada, but I can learn to play nice. After all it's what got us here.

Bibliography:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dada-115169154/

https://www.lempertz.com/en/academy/detail/dadaism-art.html

https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-the-dada-art-movement/

https://spokenvision.com/dada-anti-art-and-nihilism/

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About the Creator

Alex Brown

Mostly politically slanted and very clearly influenced by Youtube video essayists

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