Dada: Art and Anti-Art

Dada was, according to this book: "a unique mixture of insatiable curiosity, playfulness and pure contradiction."
. dADA was not though: ground-breaking, utterly original. Its cabaret style, its insulting of audiences, its clowning and provocations, manifestos, photo-montages and random poetry, were all lifted directly from the Futurists who preceded it.
. DAdA: employed randomness, spontaneity and nonsense, not in place of order, premeditation and sense, but in combination, head-on - the collision was the thing.
. dADa: was not saying via that infamous urinal, or the bicycle wheel nailed to a coffee table, "anything can be art" or "everything is art"; it was saying "these are not art - there's no such thing as art."
. dada's aim was: to show more destroy art, in the sense of demonstrating that art does not exist, that it is an illusion.
. daDA failed in this aim: it discovered that you can't destroy anything without simultaneously creating something else - anti-art was itself just more art and its creators, ironically, have become iconic figures.
. DADA also realised that: to produce even Hans Arp's torn fragments of paper fluttering down randomly and simply glued into position where they fell, there was still the initial intent, the idea of doing this in the first place - and that that's where the art lies. Art is not the finished object, it's a state of mind.
. DaDA was of course, above all: wonderful fun while it lasted.
. Dada: Art and Anti-Art is: the most un-Dadalike book on Dada I've read. It is lucid, meticulous, measured, thoughtful and was written by one of those who were actually there at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich during those heady days during the First World War when a handful of twenty-somethings tried, and gloriously failed, to change the world. show less

As usual, not the same edition I have, not the same cover art.. but, whatever.. I wonder how many bks had "Anti-Art" in their titles before this one? Not many I imagine. This bk was written in the early 1960s when Richter, a major dadaist, was an old man - probably in his 60s. In chapter 8: "Neo-Dada", he writes about pop art by commenting: "The anti-aesthetic gesture of the 'ready-made', and the blasphemies of Picabia, now reappear in the guise of folk-art - as comic strips or as crushed automobile bodies. They are neither non-art or anti-art but objects to be enjoyed. The feelings they evoke in the beholder's mind belong on the artistic level of a garden dwarf. The pleasure offered to the public is plain infantilism [..] show more Uncompromising revolt has been replaced by unconditional adjustment." HAHA! Good onya mate! As the projectionist at the Andy Warhol Museum, I can only agree! & let's not forget art as good business for the museum directors, eh?! Where else can you make SO MUCH MONEY by PRETENDING to care! show less

A wonderful exuberant and conversational first-hand account of the activities of the Zurich Dadaists. One of my favourite books of all.

I read this book in college for a class on the Dada movement. It was excellent, and really gives the reader a keen understanding of the background surrounding the movement.