After World War I is declared in Europe, a number
of artists, including
the future DaDaists Hans Arp, Hugo Ball, Marcel Janco, and Tristan
Tzara all
converge on Zürich, Switzerland, which remains neutral throughout
the
war.
While in Zürich, many of these artists and
writers continue to
publish and exhibit their works; having taken strong anti-war views
themselves, their art also shows such opinions of disgust towards the
activities of the rest of the continent.
1916
In February, the Cabaret Voltaire is founded as a
meeting-place for several artists and writers in Zürich.
The word "DaDa" is discovered in a dictionary and
embraced as the name
for the new movement by its members (Tristan Tzara is usually given
credit
for this discovery).
Richard Huelsenbeck travels from Berlin to
Zürich to meet with the
DaDaists.
In June, the first issue of "Cabaret Voltaire"
appears.
July marks the first "DaDa Evening" ("DaDa
Soirée"), which becomes
something of a DaDaist convention.
In September and October, Richard Huelsenbeck
publishes a pair of DaDa-inspired books.
1917
This is the year of the revolutions in Russia, and
the year the U.S.
enters WWI against Germany; despite this, there is some DaDa influence
in
the U.S. and Russia: various modern art exhibits are held in the U.S.
which
also showcase DaDa-inspired works, and the DaDa movement begins to have
an
influence on Russian dance.
Picabia publishes the periodical "391" in the U.S.
and Spain.
Richard Huelsenbeck returns to Berlin, and founds a
DaDa-movement there.
The "Galerie DaDa" opens in Zürich, featuring
works by Tzara, Arp, and Ball. The Second and Third "DaDa Evenings" are
held there.
The periodical "Dada" is published (issues 1 &
2).
1918
"Club Dada" and "Der Dada" are published in Berlin
with contributions by
Huelsenbeck, Johannes Baader, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Franz Jung,
John
Heartfield, Walter Mehring, and Gerhard Preiss.
In Cologne, another DaDa-group is formed by Max
Ernst, Johannes Theodor
Baargeld.
After hearing of the DaDa movement in Zürich,
a number of artists in
Paris, including Aragon, Breton, Eluard, Soupault, and
Ribemont-Dessaignes,
become interested in DaDa.
The first public DaDa event in Berlin is held in
March, and the first
German DaDa-manifesto is publicized in April.
Tzara's "25 poems" are published in July, with
illustrations by Arp.
An exhibit entitled "Die Neue Kunst" ("The New
Art") is held in Zürich in September, featuring works by several
of the dadaists.
"Dada" issue #3 is published in December.
1919
The dadaists in Berlin come out publicly against
the Weimar Republic.
Hans Arp joins the dadaists in Cologne. "Der
Ventilator" and "Bulletin D"
are published.
Kurt Schwitters begins his "Merz" in Hannover, with
the publication of
"Anna Blume."
"Dada 4/5" and "Der Zeltweg" are published in
Zürich.
Tristan Tzara leave Zürich for Paris.
1920
The "Dada-Almanach" is published in Berlin.
Hausmann and Huelsenbeck give a lecture tour on
DaDa in Dresden, Hamburg,
Leipzig, and Prague.
A DaDa exhibition, with works by Picabia, Arp, and
Ribemont-Dessaignes,
takes place in Geneva.
A DaDa exhibition in Cologne is closed down by the
police.
"Dada" #6 & #7 are published, "391" continues
to be published, and Picabia
publishes his "Cannibale."
Arp leaves Cologne for Paris, where a "DaDa
festival" takes place in May.
The "Erste Internationale Dada-Messe" takes place
in Berlin in June.
1921
The DaDa journal "Bleu" is published in Italy.
Duchamp and Man Ray publish "New York Dada."
Picabia and Breton withdraw themselves from the
dadaism movement.
A dada exhibition featuring the works of Max Ernst
takes place in Paris.
1922
Max Ernst leaves Cologne for Paris, dissolving the
Cologne DaDa group.
The DaDa-journal "Mecano" is published by Theo van
Doesburg in the
Netherlands.
Picabia and Breton publish works attacking the
dadaists, who led by
Tzara, publish a counter-attack, but the Paris DaDa group also
dissolves.
A "Congress of the Constructivists" is held in
Weimar in October, which
is attended by a number of the German dadaists.
1923
Duchamp, in New York, gives up painting.
Two final dada stage performances are held in Paris
during the summer.
1924
After a publication of a surrealist manifesto by
Breton, most of the remaining dadaists join the surrealism movement.
Schwitter's publication "Merz" continues to be
published off and on for
several more years.
André Breton
Surrealism:
1. Where: Paris, New York
2. Who: Breton, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte,
Joan Miro, Paul Klee, many of the Dadaists
3. How: Breton's Surrealist
Revolution
Brief Chronology (1918-33)
1924
- Breton's Manifesto
1930
- Dali enters movement
Dali, Memory
Max Ernst,L'Ange du
foyer ou Le Triomphe
du surréalisme (1937)
Joan Miro, Pipa (Pipe)
Retrato (Portrait)
Rene Magritte, This is not a pipe
Rene Magritte, The Great War
Beyond
Art and Literature: Music and Film
Music: Erik Satie: Collaborated (with Picasso,
Jean Cocteau, Massine) on the ballet Parade
(1915); Socrates (1919)
Film: Hans Richter: Film Studies
(1926), Ghosts before Breakfast
(1927)
(German) Expressionism
Definition: Early 20th-century literary, artistic movement
that sought to depict the workings of the subconscious mind through
fantasy, primitivism, distortion, and exaggeration. Sometimes referred
to as a "non-naturalistic" movement, it worked toward "a refined
realism, harmony, and beauty with exaggeration, distortion, and
dissonance; subtle feelings with intense emotion, terror, fury, agony;
and aristocratic reserve with democratic appeals to mankind”
("Expressionism" 336).
- Influenced film noir (1940s) and the horror genre
- Prescient treatment of topic of authoritative control
- Psychological fantasy
Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny," in The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. & trs. James
Strachey, vol. XVII (London: Hogarth, 1953), pp. 219-252 (BF173.F68 in
Davidson Library).
"Uncanny" is translated from "unheimlich," meaning haunted
(literally--not homey)
From Professor
Warner/Transcriptions Project: Uncanny = effect comes from the
supervening of the earlier unconscious event upon a later one;
the subject experiences something as that which is both strange
and familiar, odd but intimate, alien but all too "close." Freud
suggests that the most strange, eerie and scary comes not from what
is far away from our experience and feelings (the exotic,
foreign, the utterly new and alien) but from what is close to
home, the private and the familiar which has been rendered
secret through repression, but then returns.