Dada. I love this ‘art/literature’ movement. Not that I can rightfully call it a movement, as it seems to me more of a creative panic attack in the face of what appeared to be a rather horrific future, and the thread of connection between the groups and members was not one of matching style, but was one of friendship. The people in Berlin, Paris and America knew each other, exchanging letters and occasionally visiting each other. But I will not say it was ever intended to be a movement or something glorified by such a title in the annals of art history. People have been trying to apply meaning to it, to shoe-horn it into a nice pigeonhole, but Dada, by its nature is un-pigeonholable. It wasn’t about doing things in this style or that, about being ‘cool’ or just randomly throwing a fit and calling it art, it was about questioning things and attacking the values of the current- and apparently non-viable (to the eyes of the young dadaists)- society. It was angry teenage and 20-or30-something art made by angry, intelligent young people who were not satisfied with the world they saw around them or the way how people accepted things merely based upon the labels given.
Is something art because I say it is? Because it has been placed in a context we associate art with, such as a gallery? Because it was made by a human? Because it managed to get into some textbook?
