The Beginnings of Dada

The Dada and Surrealism art movements that began in the early 1920's challenged the concept and idea of art at the time. The Dada movement represented itself through pieces such as 'readymades' or performances as well as standard art mediums. This movement rejected any logic and rationality within it's expression, and instead stood for nonsense. Primarily a visual art movement, Dada-ism stood for anti-war and was against alot of norms of society in general. Actually Dada ideas mainly revolved around this anti-art image and idea of challenging what is art and what it is contrived of. 

Where as previous art movements were concerned with aesthetics based of off traditional art works and previous movements, Dada sought to dismiss this whole conception. For example, one of the first pieces considered "Dada" was Hugo Ball Reciting the Sound Poem, from 1916. This piece consisted of Hugo dressing up in cardboard and reciting sounds, noises of gibberish to an audience at the Cabaret Voltaire. The ideas behind these Dada influenced pieces were revolutionary at the time, and made a mark within art history. However items like readymades and these performances were and still are considered as controversial within the aspect of art.

I think, when looking at modern art during the time period, that the Dada movement was more of a relief to artists. Taking readymades, items that had already been produced for a certain use, and turning them into art shocked the art world and left artists to ponder the idea of art. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, a porcelain urinal, is a great example of a readymade and revolutionary Dada piece. He took this plumbing fixture and wrote in permanent marker “R. Mutt 1417”, which is considered as gibberish itself. This piece was exhibited in a museum and seen as offensive and absolutely non-art.

I would say that items like this readymade, can be considered art in a certain aspect. Not within a purely visual aspect, but more behind the idea of art and what it is. This readymade can be considered art, within the idea of it itself. This is the Dada idea of challenging the art world, a characteristic of the avant-garde.  People involved in this Dad movement, would not even consider it an art movement, and therefore perhaps their pieces are not art at all. They challenge the public to make these decisions of what is or is not art, of what is displayed in an exhibition or not.

Though some pieces of Dada are not visually appealing, they do not stand for aesthetics. This movement, different from any other within art, depicts nonsense and dismisses any logic especially within art forms based off of historical art movements.  The modern art world was witness to pieces that could be verbal nonsense, items from every day life, or anything in general. Artists like Ball and Duchamp were revolutionary within their art pieces, and challenged the art world with an avant-garde quality to it.