DaDa Movement

DaDa emerged around 1916, born from the horrors of the first World War. They sought to unravel the war for what it is and what it had done using chaotic and random means. They also intended to rebel against other issues such as the traditional idea of art, the world war and bourgeois- communism.

It's unsure where Dadaism formed or where the idea came from but many believe it formed in Zurich and then spread to Berlin. A lot of dada artists moved to Switzerland for it's neutral attitude.

Hugo Ball recited the first manifesto and Tristan Tzara wrote the second manifesto which was and always will be one of the most important writings in history.

Marcel Duchamp wanted to prove that anything can be called art. Even writing a name on an urinal (not even his own name) could be art. It was sent to the Society of Indepedent artists but was rejected despite the fee that was payed. This became a popular photo and was regarded as the first ready-made art in creation. To be honest however he probably just didn't want to get caught so he wrote somebody else name on it.

"The artist is a not great creator—Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object—it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling—at best it is puzzling and mostly leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on." quoted by Stephen Hicks.

I've rewritten this several hundred times now. My mind always being swayed and changed. I've always been scared writing about this because I knew my mind would changed. I've got a lot to learn, and I'm still learning. At first I loved the idea of dadaism. Art can be almost anything, more than a painting. I fully agree with this. 
However Dadaism is nothing more than punk. It set it mind on being crude, defiant and shocking with nothing more than rubbish. They sought to be intellectual beings, anarchists that would challenge the world to how different they were. Unfortunately there's a huge possibility that they were in it for the money.  They'd preach about how it was to make a difference, or how writing a name on an urinal (which teens do every day) was art, but most of it was money lust. 

The idea of ready mades that the manufactured object is art isn't hogwash. In fact it's pretty true. The assembly of a pen even can be seen as art. It's creation and use, who made it, is art. But to take credit with something as mediocre as writing somebody's name on an urinal, or drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa is just silly. At least dadaism knew it was daft, but it wasn't in the good sense. 

They say traditional art has no meaning, it was just for the rich. Honestly that's ridiculous. They probably just didn't look hard enough, but you'll see beautiful messages displayed. As my dad believes art is the artist conveying a message. It's like reading a novel or biography, only done with crafts and arts. An artist's interpretation and style is art, even if it doesn' look so appealing. 

I like the idea of photo montage, cut and paste which is what I'm focusing on at the moment. It's fun creating and merging photo's together to create one. The same goes for collage, scavenging around for materials to use. It was indeed a clever idea for future methods in creating art. However a lot of people tend to only collage because it's easy; not to convey any message. I'll admit I haven't been thinking about symbolism and messages like I intended to. I'm just playing about, seeing what I can create. However my final piece will be full of symbolism, and will convey a certain message. Heck it will even relate to my interpretation on dadaism. I'll write about it another time however, once I've planned it all. 

We get photos of women's bedrooms, the story being that she cheated on her husband and is thus 'art'. We have things like Conchita Wurst - Rise Like A Phoenix (Austria) 2014 Eurovision where she only won because of her beard, and not the message to tried convey. She couldn't sing, the lyrics were bland and the music was uninspired. The only good thing about it was slightly about the message (accepting who you are and others accepting what you are; aka here being a transvestite/gay which I fully support) and the performance on her stage. This is just like Dadaism. Having a bland message, something shocking and merely winning people over on their quirkiness. Dadaism has influenced various art forms such as
Surrealism, Conceptual Art, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Post-Modernism as well as some political matters.