Dada — A History of Rebellion

Author: (French) Beatrice (French) Klossowski
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: On February 8, 1916, a group of conscientious objectors against being killed in war carelessly inserted a paper knife into a Larousse French dictionary in Zurich. This led to the formation of an international group named "Dada," named after a meaningless word, and the ensuing Dada movement. Under the banner that encompassed all nihilistic things, Dada sought to subvert moral standards, civil systems, dialectical structures, aesthetic criteria, dogmatic logic, language norms, and even religious beliefs—all of which they considered vague peaks. This unique anti-establishment group, with their distinctive celebratory rituals, contributed to the development of modern art from a destructive perspective and ultimately gave rise to surrealism. In 1921, Parisian university students threw a paper man symbolizing Dada into the Seine River to "drown," marking the end of this fleeting movement. In this book co-authored by Henry Beaulieu and Michel Klossowski, the historical panorama of the Dada movement is presented, vivid details of the movement are explored, and the disruptive actions and mental states of key figures such as Hugo Ball, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and Tristan Tzara during the movement are reconstructed, outlining the three-dimensional lines of this rebellious history of Dada.