Friday, March 31, 2006

Dada art movement is for Dodos

I have a bone to pick with the so-called "Dada" art movement. Currently on display at the National Art Gallery in Washington D.C. is a tribute to the avant-garde art movement born out of a time of social upheaval and disillusionment in the wake of post-WWI France. The most famous example of Dada art is Marcel Duchamp's urinal turned upside-down, with a moustache, bearing the title "fountain". I'd call it, "urinal turned upside down". I submit that this is not art. If art is anything the artist says it is, then nothing is art. Dada intended its brand of artistic nihilism to be taken as a serious, anti-war statement. How can you critisize a society but claim to stand for nothing at the same time? What the hell am I babbling about and why should you care? Here's why:

"Dadaists want to have it both ways: To thwart aesthetic criticism, they insist that their art is nonsensical and even "anti-art." Yet they also want to be taken seriously, claiming their art has a moral charge to reveal the hypocrisies of their society. What Dadaism represents is the origins of 21st-century moral relativism."

That article is found here and I heartily recommend it to all flappers and Johnny two-timers. Rather than summarize her argument, I will defer to her well articulated criticism of this poo poo shoo shoo foo foo goo.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to listen to crickets play electronica with tiny digital scratch machines.

1 comment:

. said...


daddy art


er... this comment is a turn for the wurst...