Meaning:

“Dada”, written phonetically as (/ˈdɑːdɑː/), is commonly referred to as ‘baby talk’, since infants normally call their father figure that. This is a very simplistic utterance which has a lot of associations. Interestingly, Dada actually translates into ‘hobby horse’ in French.

Movement:

Dadaism (Dada), in itself, was an anti-art movement. The aim was create radical pieces that generated a big reaction from the audiences. Dadaists dispensed all of their artistic thinking and completely changed the way in which they depicted the world.

Many artists would get together and form clubs, such as Cabaret Voltaire. This particular club was started by Hugo Ball (born February 22, 1886) and his wife, Emmy Hemmings. Here, they were able to combine their adoration for poetry, dance, music and performance. Later, many artists joined from all different area’s of interest and added to the club’s knowledge.

Dadaism focuses on doing the opposite of what’s considered to be normal. It’s all about breaking the normal conventions and rules of society. This theme first started  as a reaction to World War One and the main aim was to surprise and shock people. Members of the group wanted to achieve a large audience reaction, therefore they thought of many ways to explore this and test the audiences responses. In turn, they began to receive great attention from doing their creative stunts and work. They did many exhibitions, which would vary from poetry to putting up posters and photo-montages. They would do ordinary things, but in different, more all spontaneous and free ways.

Between the year of 1974 and 1976, another movement called Punk Rock was formed. Jamie Reid were quite influential to this genre. Reid was also an anarchist and linked to the popular group ‘the Situationists’. They would cut-up newspapers and create photo-montages to represent this. This genre of music and art was common in at least three English-speaking countries at the time, including the UK. The movement were quite similar to Dada, in that they also went against the expected characteristics of art. They shook up society, since their views were quite extreme. Here are some examples from the Rock movement:

Name Selection:

The actual word Dada was chosen in a very crazy way. A man simply stabbed a knife into a dictionary and the first word that it pointed at was chosen.

Time Period:

This concept of Dadaism began

Dadaism came up when the first world war was in action, as a reaction towards it.

in 1916 by Hugo Ball and has majorly  influenced the way that artists work. Hugo Ball had many degree’s of creativity. He was a poet, author and of course dadaist. Examples of photo-montages in Dada form:

In this photograph above, there are three different characters which were all created by Ball. These were completed in the early and late 19th century. Each capture unique and outstanding performances, some done at Cabaret Voltaire, which captured the moment within a split-second of a frame. They all express Ball’s ideologies about the world. During that time period, he was probably trying to protest against the negative occurrences, in particular the world wars.

Hugo Ball quotes:

• The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise? 
• We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.
• Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency which suggests that even the question “Have we anything to eat?” will be answered not in material but in ethical terms.
• It’s inspiration that counts, not the drill.

The international Dada Fair was captured with this photograph:

“For us, art is not an end in itself,” Hugo Ball said, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in”. The group was not so worried about the aesthetical qualities of their work. They just wanted to show their thought processes and ideas. The Dadaists used many modernised techniques. Their main methods of displaying work was in photomontages and collages. Famous examples include:

Tom Pope himself uses this concept, frequently, as an influence for his work. Nowadays, there are many new concepts, which have been previously influenced by Dadaism. Examples include: Situationism, Fluxus, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism and Performance Art.

“DADA, as for it, it smells of nothing, it is nothing, nothing, nothing.” – Picabia.