Dada + Dadaism described by the famous Dadaist artists, in their quotes
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These selected quotes of famous Dada artists describe the revolting character of Dada – a.o. Kurt Schwitters, Hans / Jean Arp and Theo van Doesburg.
Dada was an art movement and life style. Dadaism started circa 1917, partly as a reaction on the shocking experiences of the massacres in World War 1. It wanted to provoke ruling society, but not in a serious way. It attracted – mostly for a short period – many young artists. The German artist Kurt Schwitters belongs to the German not-political Dada; he was refused by Swiss political Dadaists to participate in the Dada movement of Geneva. In 1920 Schwitters’ friendship and frequent cooperation with Dadaist Hans Arp started. In 1922 the connection started between Kurt Schwitters and the Dutch former De Stijl-artist Theo van Doesburg with his wife Nelie. The three organized Dada-evenings in The Netherlands, which provoked Dutch establishment.
Fons Heijnsbroek
Kurt Schwitters describes in his artist quotes
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- Kurt Schwitters with his artist quotes and life stories, describing Dada, his Merz-art, the many collages and poems (often created with Hans / Jean Arp), his music and installation art: Merzbau. Kurt Schwitters was sculptor, painter, poet and writer; he represented as engaged Dada artist the not-political Dada in Germany (not accepted by the political Dada of Switzerland. In 1937 Schwitters must escape the Nazi terror and moves to Norway, later to England. His friendship and collaboration with Hans Arp started in 1920, with Theo van doesburg in 1922 – the editor
- We, the founders of Dada-movement try to give time its own reflection in the mirror.
– We, members of the Dada movement, merely hold up a mirror to the times.
– Out of love for our style we put all our strength into the Dada movement (Because Dada exposes our lack of style; Schwitters.)
* source of his quote, describing the first Dada expression in the first edition of his magazine “Merz”, 1923 – as quoted in “Richtingen in de Hedendaagsche Schilderkunst” , by Jacob Bendien – published by W.L & J. Brusse N.V. – Rotterdam 1936, pp. 118 – 127
* source of his artist quote, describing Dada Art & life in Holland: ‘Autobiography of Kurt Schwitters’, 6 June 1926, sent to Hans Hilderbrandt; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 92
- In the war ( World War 1., ed.) things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready… …I felt myself freed and had to shout my jubilation out to the world. Out of parsimony I took what I could find to do this, because we were now an impoverished country. One can even shout with refuse, and this is what I did, nailing and gluing it (his art-works – this was his start making collage-art, ed.) together. I called it ‘Merz’; it was a prayer about the victorious end of the war, victorious as once again peace had won in the end; everything had broken down in any case and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz.
* source of his quote, describing his life during the War: ‘Kurt Schwitters’ (1930), in “Kurt Schwitters, das literarische Werk”. Ed. Friedhelm Lach, Dumont Cologne, 1973 – 1981, Vol. 5 p. 335
- Kurt Schwitters is the inventor of Merz and I, and aside of himself, he recognizes no one as a Merz artists or an I artist with highest regards.
* source of his quote, in: ‘Die Blume Anna’, a poem of Kurt Schwitters in ‘Consistent Poetry Art’ his contribution to ‘Magazine G’, No. 3, 1924, ed. by Hans Richter; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 151
- When I was born 20.6.(18)87, I was influenced by Picasso to cry. When I could walk and speak I still stood under Picasso’s influence and said to my mother: ‘Tom’ or ‘Happening’ meaning the entrances of the canal under the street. My lyrical time was when I lived in the Violet Street. I never saw a violet. That was my influenced by Matisse because when he painted rose I did not paint violet. As a boy of ten I stood under Mondrian’s influence and built little houses with little bricks. Afterwards I stood under the influence of the Surrealists… …I never stood under the influence of Dadaism because whereas the Dadaist created Spiegeldadaismus on the Zurich Lake (in Switzerland, so Swiss Dada, ed.), I created MERZ on the Leineriver, under the influence of Rembrandt. Time went on, and when Hans Arp made concrete Art, I stayed Abstract. Now I do concrete Art, and Marcel Duchamps went over to the Surrealists… …,and at all I have much fun about Art.
* Kurt Schwitters’ quote describes his auto-biography and the development of his artistic life with a lot of jokes, from: ‘My art and My live (1940 – 1946); as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 100
- In Hanover I built, before Hitler’s time, a studio called Merzbau. This merzbau has been reproduced very much, also in the book ‘Dada, Surrealism, Fantastic Art’ of the Museum of Modern Art (this American exposition of his Merz Art was in 1936, ed.) N. Y. I would like to go to Germany for restoring the Merzbau… …Could I come with you to an agreement that you give me for this purpose some money? For example that I give you
some pictures for the money and use it for restoring the studio… …Or would you prefer that you own with me half and half -after it would be restored…
* source of his artist quote; Schwitters describes the on restoring his earlier MerzBau in his early German Dada years, in a: letter to Oliver Kaufmann, (department of Painting and Sculpture of the Moma New York), 30 April 1946; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 48
* Kurt Schwitters, source of a quote on Dada Art & life: ‘Merz Painting’ (1919); as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91
- Merz art strives for immediate expression by shortening the path from intuition to visual manifestation of the artwork… …they will receive my new work as they always have when something new presents itself: with indignation and screams of scorn.
* Kurt Schwitters’ artist quote describes Dada Art & life: ‘Merz Painting’ (1919); as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91
- The medium is as unimportant as I myself. Essential is only the forming… …I take any material whatsoever if the picture demands it. When I adjust materials of different kinds to one another, I have taken a step in advance of mere oil painting, for in addition to playing off color against color, line against line, form against form etc. I play off material against material, wood against sack clothes. (1921)
* source of Kurt Schwitter’ quote on using his medium in creating Dada Art: “Abstract Art”, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, pp. 68-69
- Classical poetry counts on people’s similarity. It regards idea associations as unequivocal. This is a mistake. In any case, it rests on a fulcrum of idea associations: ‘Above the peaks is peace.’… …The poet counts on poetic feelings. And what is a poetic feeling? The whole poetry of peace/ quiet stands or falls on the reader’s ability to feel. Words are not judged here.
* source of Kurt Schwitter’ quote on classical compared to Dada poetry, in: ‘Consistent Poetry Art’ Schwitters contribution to ‘Magazine G’, No. 3, 1924, ed. by Hans Richter; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 151
- My name is Schwitters, Kurt Schwitters… …I’m a painter and I nail my pictures… …I’d like to be accepted into the Dada Club (Schwitters is introducing himself to the Dadaist Hans Richter in Zurich, and was rejected, ed.)
* Kurt Schwitters, source: ‘Hannover-Dada’, Hans Richter, after 1948; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 151
- Kurt Schwitters sentences in a memory by Hans /Jean Arp, (both creating Dada-poetry lines for a novel, ed.):
– Whatever became of Kurt Schwitters novel ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling’ (free translated: Franz Müller’s ‘Wire Spring’ – ed.) several chapters of which we composed together? Is it buried under the bomb ruins of is house on Waldhausenstrasse in Hannover? For hours, Schwitters and I (= Hans Arp, ed.) sat together and spun dialogue, in rhapsody. He took these writings and channeled them into his novel… …We sat together again, writing ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling’:
Hans Arp: The nightingales have had enough of your hymnal Karagösen. Play violin on parrots, but avoid the women red hood ans snow widow.
Kurt Schwitters: Should I pe-trify something for you? Or would you like play cry together?
H. A.: Should we wash our tears or drown them?
K. Schw.: You are a sipsnipper, Since when do your diamonds bark?
H. A.: The water is getting hard. A fruit cries out loud and gives birth to a fish.
K. Schw.: I’ll p-ut it in the sea, or should I st-ab you wth it?
* source of this dialogue, in : ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling – Memories of Kurt Schwitters’, Hans Arp 1956; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, pp. 139-140
* source of Kurt Schwitters’ quote which describes how to use a medium as Dada artist, from: That is my confession I have to make MERZ. (1940 – 1946); as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, pp. 100-101
Hans Jean Arp describes in his artist quotes
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- Hans, Jean Arp, with his artist quotes and comments; they describe the roots and Dada as movement. Moreover he described his Concrete art, the Dadaist artists & his Dadaist sculpture art. Arp was famous for his abstract Dada and Surrealist sculpture art. He created moreover artworks like poems, paintings, many Dadaist collages and a lot of art-statements in his many writings. He wanted to create art which was highly anonymous, general and impersonal. Arp created frequently together with his wife Sophie Arp Tauber – they married in 1922 – Kurt Schwitters and in France with Theo van Doesburg. Arp was a founding member of early Dada in Zurich and in Cologne; later he participated in French Surrealism. – the editor
- Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we (the Dada artists, ed. in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote poems with all our might. We were seeking an art based on fundamentals, to cure the madness of the age, and find a new order of things that would restore the balance between heaven and hell. We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men’s minds.
* Hans / Jean Arp, artist statement on the early years early Swiss Dada in Zurich – source: “Dadaland”, 1938
- In the good times of Dada, we detested polished works, the distracted air of spiritual struggle, the titans, and we rejected them with all out being.
* Hans Arp, statement on the history of Dada art – source: “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs”, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 307
- Dada was given the Venus of Milo a clyster and has allowed the Laocoön and his sons to rest awhile, after thousands of years of struggle with the good sausage Python. The philosophers are of less use to Dada than an old toothbrush, and it leaves them on the scrap heap for the great leaders of the world.
* Hans / Jean Arp, his artist quote describes the importance of Dada, expressed in mythological images; source: “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs”, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 63
- Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order.
* Hans / Jean Arp, quote describes the natural character and intention of early Dada – source: “Abstract Art”, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990, p. 66
- ‘I wanted to find another order, another value for man in nature. He should no longer be the measure of all things, nor should everything be compared with him, but, on the contrary, all things, and man as well, should be like nature, without measure. I wanted to create new appearances, to extract new forms from man. This is made clear in my objects from 1917.’
* Hans / Jean Arp’s art statement in Dada, circa 1917- source: “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs”, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 183
- the streams buck like rams in a tent.
whips crack and from the hills come the crookedly combed
shadows of the shepherds.
black eggs and fools’ bells fall from the trees.
thunder drums and kettledrums beat upon the ears of the
donkeys.
wings brush against flowers.
fountains spring up in the eyes of the wild boar.
* Hans / Jean Arp: a Dada poetry line: from Arp’s poem ‘Der Vogel Selbdritt’, Hans Arp; first published in 1920; “Gesammelte Gedichte I”, p. 41 (transl. Herbert Read); in “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs,”, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 288
- Whatever became of Kurt Schwitters novel ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling’ (Franz Müller’s Wire Spring, Schwitters novel; ed.) several chapters of which we composed together? Is it buried under the bomb ruins of is house on Waldhausenstrasse in Hannover (where Schwitters had built his studio Merzbau and where the two artists were creating Dada poetry in dialogues; ed.)? For hours, Schwitters and I sat together and spun dialogue, in rhapsody. He took these writings and channeled them into his novel… …We sat together again, writing ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling’:
H. A.: The nightingales have had enough of your hymnal Karagösen. Play violin on parrots, but avoid the women red hood ans snow widow.
K. Schw.: Should I pe-trify something for you? Or would you like play cry together?
- A.: Should we wash our tears or drown them?
K. Schw.: You are a sipsnipper, Since when do your diamonds bark?
H. A.: The water is getting hard. A fruit cries out loud and gives birth to a fish.
K. Schw.: I’ll p-ut it in the sea, or should I st-ab you wth it?
source of the quote, describing Arp’s / Schwitters dialogue:‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling – Memories of Kurt Schwitters’, Hans Arp 1956; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, pp. 139-140
- Then we went down to his work room, in the horrible beautiful Merz grotto (Schwitters Merz-bau; ed.), where broken wheels paired with matchboxes, wire lattices with brushes without bristles, rusted wheels with curious Merz cucumbers… …How often did we ‘p-lay’ in this room! Schwitters called playing, considering the sweat, working. There we glued together our paper pictures,, and as I tossed away one of my glued-together works one morning, Schwitters asked, ‘You don’t like it? Can I have it?’ – ‘What do you want with this failed piece of toast?’ Schwitters took a good look at it and said, ‘I’ll put what’s on top on the bottom, I’ll stick a little Merz nose in this corner and I’ll sign the bottom Kurt Schwitters.’ And, yes indeed, this collage became a wonderful picture by Kurt Schwitters. Schwitters was a wizard, just as Hokusai was a wizard…
source of Arp’s quote, describing the frequent collaboration with Kurt Schwitters, from: ‘Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling – Memories of Kurt Schwitters’, Hans Arp 1956; as quoted in “I is Style”, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, commissioned by Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, pp. 140-141
- I did exhibitions with the Surrealists (in Paris – in 1925 already, ed.) because their attitude revolted against ‘art’ and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada’s. (remark of Arp, he made in 1929)
* Hans / Jean Arp’s quote described the atmosphere of the Surrealists in Paris – source: “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs”, Paris 1966, p. 406
- I allow myself to be guided by the work which is in the process of being born, I have confidence in it (automatic painting, ed.). I do not think about it. The forms arrive pleasant, or strange, hostile, inexplicable, mute, or drowsy. They are born from themselves. It seems to me as if all I do is move my hands.
* Hans / Jean Arp’s statement on ‘automatic painting / drawing, sculpting etc.. – source: “Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs”, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 307
- The cynicism of Dadaists is a mask. (not sourced artist quote by Hans Arp)
- Dada is for dreams, colourful paper masks, kettledrums, sound poems, concretions, poem statistics, for ssthings that are not far from picking flowers and making bouquets. (not sourced quote by Arp)
Theo van Doesburg describes in his artist quotes
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- Theo van Doesburg was co-founder of the Dutch art magazine and artist-group ‘De Stijl’ with Piet Mondrian. After his De Stijl period Van Doesburg engaged himself more and more with the revolting Dada ideas which he describes in his selected quotes, here. In cooperation with German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters van Doesburg organized in The Netherlands in 1923 a few Dada meetings where the police intervened. And he wrote his very empathized Dada-article ‘What is dada???????’ in De Stijl art-magazine.
Later Van Doesburg formulated his personal Elementarism Manifesto. Van Doesburg was a painter but nevertheless strongly fascinated by architecture; he practiced this ideas in the famous Aubette project with Hans Arp and Sophie Arp Tauber, between 1926 – 1928 in Strasbourg.
- Dada is a face.
Dada wants to be lived.
Dada does not want to be understood intellectually.
Dada rejects inexorably any logical association of ideas.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 131(not sourced quote by Arp)‘ Dada’, wrote Richard Huelsenbeck (a famous Dada writer from Switzerland, here quoted by Van Doesburg – ed.), ‘has dipped its fingers in all philosophies of life. Dada is the dancer’s spirit transcending all terrestrial moralities. Dada is the great phenomenon which is parallel to the relativistic philosophies of the present period, Dada is not an axiom, Dada is an attitude of mind independent of schools and theories….’
* his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 131
- The question continually put to Dadaists, ‘What is Dada?’, can as little be answered as other questions on other phenomena of life. The answer to the question, ‘ What is Dada’, can only be given by spontaneous action.
It is an error to think that Dadaism belongs to the category of new art forms such as impressionism, futurism, cubism, expressionism and so forth.
Dada is not a movement in art.
Dada is an outlook on life-opposed to anything we imagine to be of vital importance.
* source of his artist quote, describing the question of Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 131
- Dada is the denial of the conventionalism of daily life
Dada is the strongest possible negation of any cultural evaluation. The true Dadaist does not adopt anything, neither art, politics, philosophy nor religion.
The Dadaist considers all these signs of an obsolete pseudo-culture to be fraudulent trade-marks. Each brand is sold for as long as a new brand has not been discovered.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 132
- According to the Dadaist, humanity, due to fetishistic instinct, is inclined to blind itself with certain characteristic symbols. These serve al advertisements and, as such, are repeated many times, producing an ineffaceable impression: religion by a cross, Odol toothpaste by a curved bottle, Nietzsche by his big moustache, Oscar Wilde by his homosexuality. Tolstoi by his caftan and sandals. Dada does not want to convert.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 132
- Dada was first is exposing the fraud of everything., it has declared the world bankrupt. Dadaism could be called the supra-national expression of humanity’s collective experience of life in the past ten years.
Whatever remained latent in modern man is expressed in Dada.
Dada always existed; however, it was discovered only in our own time.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 132
- According to Raoul Hausmann (one of the earliest Dadaists, ed.), ‘the Dadaist does not experience the world in a childish way; neither God, nor a father, nor a teacher can punish him. Dada is the practical depoisoning of the self – a modern European situation, anti-eastern, anti-oriental, unmagical. Dada is the germ of a new type of man : as opposed to the moralistic, Christian medieval burden of sin, Dada represents the negation of the present meaning of life or culture, which is not tragic but obsolete.’ Therefore the Dadaist does not accept any responsibility whatsoever for our culture.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 132
- The Dadaist is familiar with all the premises and background of our culture, which to him represents ‘humanity and barbarism as one and the same expression’. He knows all the ‘ropes’ and ‘tricks’ relating to out most elementary interests in life. He knows exactly how mind is favricated. Possessing a holy aversion to the ivory towers of our ‘Great Men’ he does not pretend to be an artist, a philosopher or a renovator. Free from the ambitious wish to be famous or to succeed socially, he is the frees, quietest, most even-tempered man in the world. * source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 132
- Nevertheless, the Dadaist credits man with a few positive values: the instinct to dominate and the mutual wish to devour. All ethical motives such as mercy, charity and pity are viewed by the Dadaist simply as disguises which hide the true nature of man. Moreover, the Dadaist agrees that ‘character’ can have a positive value, which means that one can have progressed far enough to live and act without false pretexts and hidden motives.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, pp. 132/133
- According to Richard Huelsenbeck (early and founding Dadaist, ed.), ‘Dada is based upon itself and acts for itself as does the sun when rising, or a tree when growing. The tree grows without wanting to grow. Dada does not give motives to its acts to serve an ‘end’. Dada does not give birth to verbal abstractions, formulae or systems which it wants to apply to mankind. It is not in need of proof or justification, neither by formulae nor by systems. Dada in itself is the creative act….’
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 133
- For the moment it is of little interest how, where, and when this phenomenon of all phenomena which we call Dada came into being. Dada is rich in data. I could tell you about the first notorious performances in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, the fights in the Gallery Dada, the great manifestations in New York, Paris and Berlin, the dada sermon of the so-called Oberdada in the dome of Berlin, the dada demonstrations in a Roman Catholic church in Paris, which were kept secret by the press, and much more, but this does not bring you any closer to the essence of dada.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 133
- Dada has neither country or nationality. It appeared quit suddenly, due to a general need for spiritual self-purification, in several places far afield: America, Switzerland, France, Germany and elsewhere.
Dada – the word does not mean anything and, as Hausmann remarked, ‘Bébé, Sisi or Lollo’ could have served just as well – did not stem from any a priori or other theory. It was born from a general resistance to our entire way of thinking.
Dada expanded more or less from ‘nothing’ over a large but limited surface, carrying everything away and finally crystalizing in the negation of all pharmaceutical principles of life.
The Dadaists – amongst whom the most outstanding and intelligent people want to be caunted nowadays (like Einstein, (Charlie ed.) Chaplin, and Bergson)* – declare in almost all manifestos that they do not want anything, nor know anything, nor are anything.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 133
- DADA, Picabia writes, does not feel anything, it is nothing, nothing, nothing.
It is like your hope: nothing
Like your idols: nothing
Like your paradise: nothing
Like your politicians: nothing
Like your heros: nothing
Like your artists: nothing
Like your religions: nothing
Dada was not made, but came into being. One cannot become a DADAIST, one can only be one.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 133
- During the first notorious after its birth, the Dadaists themselves did not entirely understand what had brought them together. During this first period (about 1915) Dadaism was of a predominantly aesthetic character. Gradually this character was lost and finally even art itself was opposed.
According to dada, art has value only as long as it can take advantage of the atavistic and fetishistic sentiments of man. According to the Dadaists, art emanates from the need to get rid of these sentiments. However, this has not yet been accomplished.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, pp. 133-134
- Dada denies evolution. Each movement evokes a counter-movement of equal force with the one cancelling the other. Nothing changes essentially. The world always remains as it was. Dada completely negates the generally acknowledged duality of matter and mind, woman and man, and in so doing creates the ‘point of indifference’, a point beyond man’s understanding of time and space.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923, pp. 3 -14; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 134
- For this reason Dada is able to mobilize the optical and dimensional static viewpoint which keeps us imprisoned in our (three-dimensional) illusions. Thus it became possible to perceive the entire prism of the world instead of just one facet at a time. In this connection Dada is one of the strongest manifestations of the fourth dimension, transposed onto the subject… …Dada is ‘yes-no, a bird on four legs, a ladder without steps, a square without angels. Dada possesses as many positives as negatives. To think that Dada simply means destruction is to misunderstand life, of which Dada is the expression.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 134
- Dada does not see nature as the charming phenomenon we like to imagine, but as a smelling corps, which spoils our spiritual pleasures and brings everything into immediate decay; everybody from the cleaning-woman to the artists (in essence one and the same person) fights against decay, or nature. I now want to quote the Dutch Dadaist (= Van Doesburg himself – even Mondrian (co-editor of the art- magazine De Stijl), didn’t know this pseudonym – ed.) I.K. Bonset who expresses this poetically in his THE DRAMADE’S HYPOSTRODON.
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 134
- The dramede’s hypostrodon by I. K. Bonset.
Dadaistic meditations near a carrion.
appeal to unnatural activities.
it cannot be denied that we are diseased with convictions. No matter to what degree one is schizophrenic, tormented and adorned with mud frills, one think himself justified in living life. Observe, however, that ‘nature’ is a carrion; this noticeable in ‘ le grand roue’ in Paris, the cornice of your house, the wrinkles of your bride and the good-natured balls of horse-dung on the boulevard Saint Michel.
THE DRAMADE’S HYPOSTRODON expresses itself in a floating and naked carrion. Any effort to create a new world of one’s invention within a void, to live there unseen and untouched by the cancer of the NATURE DRAMADE, is doomed to fail.
Anything that needs gestures and claims dimensions space time and money, is filled with microbes which sooner or later will produce a relative effect. One can never escape from the inimical counter-image of one’s ‘spiritual’ efforts (oh parody of the parody to paradise).
Whether one os satisfying oneself with luke-warm baths (= poetry), with coloured tin pheasants (= religion), with a Medieval church-window in pace of a pair of spectacles (= art), a seesaw in horizontal position (=philosophy) or with many other derivatives, the cancer in one’s heart inevitable will expand. Hundreds of generations have slaved to exorcize this cancer, to conquer it or to limit it, while not noticing that their brains and the content of their aspirations are also poisoned with the same bacilli. Dada fights the tyranny of DIRT and thereby distinguishes itself from the impressionists, who had reconciled themselves to Dirt. Whole generations have inhaled eagerly the pernicious fumes of philosophy, religion and art believing the resulting katapepsis to represent the true conditions of life.
We neo-vitalists, Dadaists, destructive constructivists have laid bare the entire abscess which hides the world’s body by crying, ‘ Look, look, look here here here nothing nothing nothing’. We feel that, without the policeman’s truncheon raised above our heads, the leisure we enjoy would be disturbed. The thing we treasure most, dadasophy teaches, is our sleeping-powder. By using this powder carefully and regularly we do not notice that all life is adorned with mud-frills. No matter how thick the walls may be with which we exclude nature, after a lapse of time, any precision-product such as an elation from out spiritual desire, will be worn out katapeptically.
DO YOU KNOW BY NOW WHAT IS ‘DADA’?
* source of his artist quote on Dada, from: ‘What is Dada??????’, in ‘De Stijl, The Hague, 1923; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, pp. 134-135
editor: Fons Heijnsbroek
