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Explaining DaDa?

In a brief moment of inspiration, or possibly foolishness, I devised a theory of linking DaDa so intrinsically with everything that is IDENTITY. I have been particularly struck by reading some of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. As a result i want to try and converge what seem to be two fairly juxtaposing directions of thought. Firstly, the stark realization of the human condition (as i have previously discussed with the example of Hugo Ball and want to continue with examples of other influential figures such as T.S.Eliot) from which DaDa was born and secondly, the idea of "freedom" which DaDa comes to represent. In the Communist Manifesto, it states, in relation to traditions of the past, "all that is solid melts into air, all that is Holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." It rings true with Eliot's portrayal of the city in The Wasteland, which i will discuss in more detail at a later date, but particularly striking is the links to what are know as the "Imagists". Again, they represent all that is essentially real. In fact, to use the word "represent" would to go against all Imagist thinking. They write an image. They write the real. But what is so vital to DaDa is that they also have a profound awareness of circumspection. Like a microcosm and a macrocosm all in one. An example would be Ezra Pound's poem, "Fan-piece, for her Imperial Lord": "O fan of white silk,/ clear as frost on the grass-blade,/ You also are laid aside." I would like to take some time in another post to discuss the Imagists in more detail. But at this point (excuse the rather fast pace) can not help link back to the idea of the eye. And i don't mean the Id or the "I" - which would also pose an interesting topic, but the human eye:

And now we can see DaDa as less isolated than perhaps first thought, and like the eye, and like identity, as part of a whole. If i were to now tell you that yesterday's "DaDa" image was in fact part of a bigger picture, then maybe this goes part of the way to further explaining DaDa, or maybe not.....that's for you to decide

Eye love.....Zombies

Freehand ideas for Graphic Novel

DaDa or DoDo? Discuss

Pieces: Identity, Change & DaDa

One of the ways we might come closer to understanding the DaDa movement and its significance in capturing the “spirit” of modernity would be to look at its relationship to past traditions and the movements and motives that inspired it. In Hugo Ball’s "Flight out of Time", he stresses the importance that the realization of the Great War as a sombre reflection of man’s supposed triumph over nature really bared little significance in comparison to the chaos and destruction caused by depression. Man became “ordinary” as Ball describes, in the face of Capitalism and it was gradually more obvious that identity was always partial and contradictory, forced upon us by the ideological structures of inequality such as patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. From this, came the DaDa movement which was as Raymond Williams describes in "The Politics of Modernism", “a violent rejection of tradition: the insistence on a clean break from the past.”[1] These ideas are exemplified in Ball’s essay "Lecture on Kandinsky" where he says that “world history splits into two parts.” There is no sense of progression between the past and the present but instead an “epoch before...and an epoch after” where “the meaning of the world disappeared.” It is unarguably a clear split, with no suggestion of foundations in the past summed up simply by Duchamp in an interview with John Perreault as “freedom.”[2] At this point I would like to introduce some examples of anti-art as a way of explaining the radical split with tradition to which Ball refers:



Fig1. Banksy, Custardized Oil #3, 2006, Oil on printed canvas, UK

Fig2. Duchamp, Marcel, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, Chromolithograph, Paris

Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. is a perfect example of the split from convention that was the DaDa movement. It forces into ridicule the sense of establishment and natural beauty represented by the Mona Lisa and with the drawing on of a beard and moustache completely undermines any of the artist’s original work. The letters L.H.O.O.Q. inscribed on the bottom when read aloud in French are a homophone of “elle a chaud au cul,” meaning, “she has a hot ass.” The parodying of such a popular piece of Renaissance art is so striking because for us as the viewer, there is something of an untouchable air about this original painting, shrouded in mystery. For Duchamp to so easily undermine what the Mona Lisa represents is undoubtedly a great example of how the DaDa movement was split from past traditions. Williams classifies such examples as “active opposition to the established institutions, or more generally to the conditions within which these exist.”[3] I think what is particularly important is the recognition that DaDa stands very much alone in its inspiration and there is little logic in its connection to previous art forms. Ball makes this point clear in his essay that it was a radical split, a definite boundary with no connections to the past other than the social and political strife from which it was formed:
“The avant-garde, aggressive from the beginning, saw itself as the breakthrough to the future: its members were not the bearers of a progress already repetitiously defined, but the militants of a creativity which would revive and liberate humanity.”[4]

[1] Williams, Raymond, The Politics of Modernism (UK: Verso, 1996) p.52
[2] Duchamp, Marcel taken from an interview with Perreault, John, DaDa Perfume: An Interview with Duchamp (US, 1996) <>
[3] Williams, Raymond, Culture (UK: Fontana, 1981) p.70
[4] Williams, Raymond, The Politics of Modernism (UK: Verso, 1996) p.51

Eye love.....SKULLS

Welcome!

For some reason i spent about three hours trying to come up with something savvy and a bit exciting for my page. That may have been because i get easily distracted by things. Particularly when those things are fridge, jam donuts, looking at things i should be doing and not doing them, and carpet. At the moment i look quite a lot like this:

But give me a few days to get some stuff on here, become a fan/follower, and i pledge to satisfy your sight fetishes. And no I'm not really a fat gamer with a beard. Except on Sundays.