Destruction Was My Beatrice

April 6, 2015
The Dada movement began in Zurich in 1916 and essentially collapsed in Paris in 1923, but its lasting worldwide influence was profound. Rasula examines the events leading up to the initial 1916 collaborative performance at Cabaret Voltaire, the seven years in which Dada flourished, and the movement’s persistent afterlife. The story of Dada is dizzying: it encompasses an enormous cast of characters, locales, and competing philosophies (and anti-philosophies). Rasula shows how the movement arose in the prewar atmosphere of Zurich when young artists including Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Hans Arp, and Richard Hulsenbeck attended the cabaret and found they shared an avant-garde spirit. Rasula’s focus on Francis Picabia and Kurt Schwitters covers new ground in addition to illustrating how well-known artists such as Man Ray, Max Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp fit into the collective movement. The book is also a fascinating history of place, as it traces the spread of Dada from the cabarets of Switzerland to the cafes of Paris, art fairs of Berlin, and galleries of New York. Perhaps befitting the Dada style, Rasula’s narrative jumps around a lot, and the shifts in time and story lines can be somewhat difficult
to follow. This accessible yet rigorous and comprehensive study outlines the history of a movement whose irreverence and inventiveness still influence our world today.

May 1, 2015
Rasula (English/Univ. of Georgia; Modernism and Poetic Inspiration, 2009, etc.) follows an uprising of disaffected artists who burned through Europe during and after World War I, incinerating old ideas of art and literature and making way for new forms. Dada was born in 1916, when Hugo Ball, fleeing the war in Germany, opened Cabaret Voltaire, where he and a cadre of creative thinkers, performers, and artists staged avant-garde poetry read by three speakers simultaneously, dancers in primitive masks, nonsensical songs, and recitations in deconstructed language. The core group of performers-Ball, singer Emmy Hennings, Rumanian poet Tristan Tzara, German poet Richard Huelsenbeck, and French artist Hans Arp-derided conventionality and complacency. They named this "anti-art" movement that wasn't a movement Dada. The word has many different meanings; the one that seemed to please them most was "the tail of a sacred cow for an African tribe." Attracting other artists along the way, Dada moved through Zurich, Berlin, Munich, and Paris, also touching down in New York City. Participants embraced the irrational, absurd, satirical, primitive, and provocative in performances, exhibits, and publications. Rasula gives a sense of the fluidity and magnitude of the art that passed through Dada's portals-e.g., Marcel Duchamp's urinal, Fountain; Otto Dix's searing Forty-Five Percent Able-Bodied, which was later included in the 1937 Nazi "degenerate art" exhibition; Francis Picabia's "mechanomorphic" drawings and paintings, and Kurt Schwitters' collages from trash and found objects. This comprehensive study of artists, exhibits, writings, and events is a heady trip, but the cataloging fails to fully capture the audacity and energetic force of Dada. With its photomontages, aggressive graphics, performance art, and use of text and objects in art, Dada left a mark on surrealism, modern art, and pop culture. When factions tried to give Dada more structure, it began to fade. As Tzara said, "The true dadas are against DADA." A well-researched survey that shows the scope of Dada and its influence on the art world.

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May 1, 2015

As Europe entered World War I and began an era of change and transition, the art world followed with the emergence of the Dada movement. Academic (Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor of English, Univ. of Georgia) and poet (Tabula Rasula) Rasula follows the lives of the founders of Dada starting with their innovative performances at Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire in the 1910s. Although dense at times, the volume truly covers all aspects of Dada culture from its birth to its bitter end. We follow writer and "Dada Manifesto" author Hugo Ball; his wife, poet and performer Emmy Jennings; performance artist and essayist Tristan Tzara; and German poet and drummer Richard Huelsenbeck; as well as many other prominent Dadaists. This comprehensive study covers everything from the irreverence of the art and performances to fights among key players. Dada was a global phenomenon that revolutionized art history and the emergence of early modern art. VERDICT Readers interested in the history of modern art will enjoy this detailed look into the rise and fall of Dada.--Rebecca Kluberdanz, GB65 Lib., New York

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