Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of critical essays celebrates the subversive and challenging creativity of the Dada movement, born in pacifist Zurich in 1916 in violent reaction to the First World War. It examines the collective and individual activities that took place under the name of Dada in Zurich, Cologne, Berlin, Paris, New York and Barcelona, and explores the various creative forms employed, including text, collage, photomontage, objects, dance, performance and film. The authors suggest new ways of understanding the work of the most famous Dadaists, while also casting light on the contribution of hitherto neglected figures. “Dada was a bomb”, declared Max Ernst in an interview in 1958. “Can you imagine anyone, almost half a century after the explosion of a bomb, trying to collect its fragments and stick them together in order to display them?” The aim of this volume is not to reconstitute the bomb, but to analyse some of its explosive effects and after-effects that continue to resonate nearly a century later. Far from attempting to reduce Dada to a homogeneous movement, or to define a unifying principle beneath and beyond the multiple directions taken by Dadaists, this collection aims to respect the diversity and heterogeneity of the movement’s collective activities as well as the specificity of its individual actors.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Elza Adamowicz and Eric Robertson: Preface: Dada and Beyond: “Eggs Laid by Tigers” Dada Politics, Dada Poetics Henri Béhar: La Colombe poignardée: Dada politique Anna Katharina Schaffner: Dissecting the Order of Signs: On the Textual Politics of Dada Poetics Marc Décimo: Comment, autour de DADA, construction de la “modernité” et Description – Révolution – Révélation – Subversion de la langue s’articulèrent Timo Kaitaro: Irresponsabilité dadaïste et surréaliste Dada Objects Mary Ann Caws: The Object of Dada Eric Robertson: Everyday Miracles: Arp's Object-Language Nina Parish: “Pour faire un livre dadaïste”: Dada Experimentation with Book Form Dada Tactics Raluca Lupu-Onet: Paul Nougé et les stratégies de dénégation Ruth Hemus: The Manifesto of Céline Arnauld Vincent Antoine: Johannes Baader, Dada et la folie Dada Portraits and Identities Raihan Kadri: Dadaist Poker: The Body and the Reformation of Form Walburga Krupp: Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber: The Quintessential Dada Couple Aurélie Verdier: La Tentation du vide. Francis Picabia et le portrait dada Elza Adamowicz: Between Museum and Fashion Journal: Hybrid Identities in the Photomontages of Hannah Höch Dada Languages Andreas Kramer: Speaking Dada: The Politics of Language Andrew Rothwell: “Je détruis les tiroirs du cerveau”: Reading Incoherence in Picabia and Automatic Writing David Christoffel: L’Envers mélodiste d’Unique Eunuque Bernard Noël: Dada PaDada Dada
