DADA, SURREALISM & CONSTRUCTIVISM

1. DADA, SURREALISM & CONSTRUCTIVISM ARTISTS PLAY HOOKY FROM ART CLASS: SOME GET RADICAL, SOME DISCOVER THEIR INNER CHILD, SOON MOON THE AUDIENCE

2. dada-ism (hobby-horse/go0-g0o) • After WWI beret-wearing hipsters were less interested in making pretty pictures than in challenging society • Movement in Paris, Berlin, Cologne, New York & Zurich • A response to highfalutin art movements with classy names • War showed them that the world was absurd and purposeless. • Not so much a style as an antisocial attitude • Dadaists were fervently ANTI-ART—shunning art works in favor of anarchic actions • They liked to stage public events such as reading of nonsense poetry, cabaret performances and mock exhibitions.

3. Five Faces of Dada: absurdist cynicism and antipathy toward bourgeois society • ZURICH DADA—began at the Cabaret Voltaire, (a hip spot) While Tzara and Emmy Hennings shouted poems on a state, Lenis read a book on Marx in the corner.

5. Paris Dada: made fun of everything including nuns • Led by writers Anre Breton and Tzara, they published more than they exhibited

6. Cologne Dada—limited to Max Ernst • Max Ernst, a first-rate provocateur who often attracted cops to his shows

7. Berlin Dada: political Dadaist invented photomontage and made fun of the Nazis • George Grosz • John Heartfield • Raoul Hausmann • Hannah Hoch

8. New Your Dada: pranksters who played jokes on Manhattan art snobs • Picabia • Man Ray • Arthur Cravan • Duchamp

9. MARCEL DUCHAMP • DREW A MOUSTACHE ON A PENNY POSTCARD OF THE MONA LISA • Many of his works questioned whether it’s art or not • “Readymade art”—something he invented by simply declaring an everyday found object to be a work of art • Among the artworks he created were a COMB, COATRACK, SNOW SHOVEL

10. FOUNTAIN by Marcel Duchamp • 2’ x 1/2” x 1/7” • 1917 • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art • Media: glazed ceramic • https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/wwI-dada/dada1/v/marcel-duchamp-fountain-1917

11. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even • 1915-23 • Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, dust on two glass panels • 109.25” x 69.25” • Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA • or simply, “The Large Glass)

12. The Large Glass • http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/54149.html • 1915-1923 • 9’ 1 1/4” x 3 3/8” • Philadelphia Museum of Art • oil, varnish lead foil, dust on two glass panels

13. Etant Donnes by Duchamp • Described by Jasper Johns as “the strangest work of art in any museum” • three dimensional environmental tableau offers an unforgettable and untranslatable experience to those who peer through the small holes in the solid wooden door • ppep show in which the viewer looks through two holes in the door to see a nude woman lying in a grassy landscape. • http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/324.html

14. SURREALISM WEIRDER AND WACKIER

15. Surrealism • primarily a literary movement led by Andre Breton—who was all excited about Freud’s ideas about the relationship between dreams and the unconscious. • Breton even visited Freud in Vienna • His idea was to unite the union of the seemingly opposed worlds of the conscious and unconscious in a higher or truer level of reality—which in 1917 he named surreality

16. The Enigma of the Day • Giorgio de Chirico • 1914 • Oil on Canvas • 6’ 1/4” x 55” • MoMA • http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80587

18. Max Ernst • Most eccentric • Made pictures by collage and frontage (rubbing made by coloring paper laid over wood grain to pick up the wood’s pattern and texture. • His alter-ego was a bird named Loplop

19. Max Ernst: The Elephant Celebes • 1921 • oil on canvas • 49.37” x 42.48” • Tate Gallery, London England

20. Miro, Miro On the Wall. . . • Joan Miro was born in Barcelona. • When he was 26 he went to Paris and fell in with the avant-garde. • His pal was Picasso • He got involved with Dadaist, too • He began painting weird, dreamy pictures • Before 1925, his paintings are incredibly meticulous —only one or two a year

22. The Hunter by Joan Miro • 1924 • Oil on canvas • 25 1/2” x 39 1/2 “ • MOMA

24. JOAN MIRO PROJECT SURREALIST DATE CLIENT

25. SALVADOR DALI HE WANTED TO REPRESENT LITERALLY AND EXACTLY THE IMAGES HE SAW IN HIS DREAMS

26. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/surrealism1/v/salvador-dal-the-persistence-of-memory-1931https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/surrealism1/v/salvador-dal-the-persistence-of-memory-1931

27. The Persistance of Memory • 1931 • MOMA • 9” x 1” • Oil paint

28. http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79018

29. DALI

30. From Russia with Revolutionary Fervor: Kasimir Malevich • One of the avant-garde who rid art totally of any reference to the natural world • Derived from Cubism but “purer.” • He said, “The square is a living, royal infant.” • He called his work Suprematism

31. Kazimir Malevich’s: Red Square and Black Square • 1915 • http://cathylockeartblog.com/kazimir-malevich-1879-1935/

32. Constructivism • Described the work of abstract artists who oppose pure are or art for art’s sake • Wanted art with a mission; art with a function • One criterion was authenticity • Desire for factual images in photography, tangible materials and textures in painting and in sculptured reliefs. • Art as a practice for social purposes

34. Summary • Avant-garde Motto: Burn the museums, damn the patrons, everything is art. The avant-garde goal: Make art and life one • Dad awas against everything: war, middle-class society, the meaninglessness of modern life, and the traditions of art • Duchamp, the ultimate Dadaist, invented the readymade, a found object that is given a new meaning as art • Surrealism sought to liberate art from reason by exploring the unconscious and depicting the incongruous dream imagery • Constructivism and Suprematism united abstract art with the political program of the Russian Revolution in an effort to creat an ideal, utopian society.

35. Up Next: Abstract Expressionism