Dada: A History of Rebellion

Author: Jean Beaulieu (French)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: On February 8, 1916, a group of conscientious objectors, who opposed being killed in war, carelessly inserted a paper knife into a Larousse French dictionary in Zurich. This led to the formation of the 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, speculative structures, aesthetic criteria, dogmatic logic, linguistic 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 in a destructive sense and ultimately paved the way for the birth of surrealism.
In 1921, Parisian university students threw the Dada symbol—a paper man—into the Seine River to "drown," marking the end of this fleeting movement. In this book co-authored by Henry Beaulieu and Michel Carassou, the historical panorama of the Dada movement is presented, along with a detailed exploration of its vivid aspects, restoring the disruptive actions and mental states of key figures such as Hugo Ball, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, and others during the movement. It outlines the three-dimensional lines of this rebellious history of Dada.