Dadaism was a literary and artistic movement that emerged in Europe during World War I, born out of a shared anti-war stance among artists and a desire for complete freedom in creative expression.
It is considered one of the most eccentric and provocative movements in art history, a center of the avant-garde. Some even regard it as a philosophy, a religion, or a state of being. It acted subversively, turning all existing values on their heads.
“We were seeking elementary art that would heal people from the madness of the time, a new order that would reestablish balance between heaven and hell.” — Hans Arp
Dadaism inspired many future artistic and cultural movements — from surrealism and poetry to conceptual and performance art, abstract expressionism, pop art, abstract photography, and even punk rock! Dadaist creative methods are still used today in literature, music, film, marketing, graphic design…
This text will explore those influences and examine what a contemporary artist or art consumer can learn from this early 20th-century avant-garde movement. We’ll also look at which methods one can use if — following the Dadaists — they wish to use their work to spread socio-political commentary and messages.
The Development of Dadaism in Small Cultural Clubs
The Dada or Dadaist movement was born on February 5, 1916, in a small nightclub called Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. It was a place where Dadaists gathered to express their criticism and disdain toward war, nationalism, conservatism, technological advancement, and traditional art.
Dadaist meetings, performances, plays, poetry readings, and exhibitions were organized there. Among the well-known artists who performed at the club were Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, and Hans Arp. Hugo Ball, at the first Dadaist meeting in 1916, publicly read the Dada Manifesto for the first time.
Although there is some debate about how the word “Dada” was chosen, the most common story says that Richard Huelsenbeck randomly selected it by stabbing a knife into a dictionary. The word “Dada” can mean everything or nothing in various languages — fitting their internationalist, absurdist, and nihilist artistic vision.
That same year, Ball also performed his piece of Dadaist or “sound poetry,” composed of meaningless words.
The concept of sound poetry was to strip poetry down to nothing but the vocalization of the human voice. In doing so, Ball demonstrated that rhythm and emotion can still be experienced in a poem, despite lacking what we would traditionally call meaning.
Later, Hugo Ball explained that his idea for founding Cabaret Voltaire was that many young people not only wanted to live out their freedom and independence but wanted to proclaim it loudly.
“Our cabaret is a gesture. Every word spoken and sung here says at least one thing — that this degrading era has not earned our respect.”
— Emmy Hennings-Ball in her biography of Hugo Ball, Weg zu Gott
Dadaist aesthetics — marked by mockery of materialistic and nationalist values and an openness to new ideas, techniques, and perspectives — soon spread around the world.
Artists in cities such as Zurich, Berlin, Paris, Hanover, Prague, Tbilisi, Mantua, Cologne, and New York formed their own artistic groups and cultural clubs where artists, intellectuals, and people who rejected participation in war gathered and called for subversion.
It is no wonder the movement emerged in neutral Switzerland, where many fled the war. From there, it spread across Europe, and when New York became a refuge for many emigrants, a similar scene began to develop. Among the French émigrés in New York in 1915 were Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, who soon connected with American artist Man Ray.
Back to Cabaret Voltaire: faced with the absurdity of World War I, the artists who performed there outdid the madness so thoroughly that the Dadaist landmark closed its doors just six months after opening.
Dadaism itself did not last long either. It dissolved between 1922 and 1924 with the rise of Surrealism — but the ideas it spawned became the foundation for various genres of modern and contemporary art, and even pop culture!
Dada’s War Against War
The word “nonsense” is often associated with Dadaism, but senselessness is even more strongly tied to the concept of war and humanity’s self-destruction. The powerful emotional reaction of young people to the Great War was the engine that launched the entire Dada concept.
Dadaists criticized militarism, mocked weapons and the supposedly anti-war actions of global political leaders. They advocated for freedom, creativity, spontaneity, play, humor, irony, absurdity, and contradiction as ways to avoid violence and conflict.
They believed art should be free from any societal constraints to express the authenticity of artistic creation. The question of whether Dadaism was politicized is not simple to answer. The mere existence of Dada was a political act, and some of the movement’s most prominent figures were deeply politically engaged.
Generally speaking, the left-leaning German Dadaists were far more politically active than their counterparts in Zurich, Paris, or New York. They often used art as a form of direct social and political critique.
Dadaists formally claimed their art was not intended to convey a specific message or ideology. Still, such claims must be taken cautiously, especially considering that one of their favorite phrases was:
“Dada is anti-Dada!”
Berlin Dadaist Hannah Höch explored feminism, gender, androgyny, politics, and social issues in her work. Her creativity and courage to challenge conventional expectations and norms had a profound impact on today’s artists.
The Search for Anti-Artistic Practices
Dadaists overturned the aesthetics of traditional art — deliberately opposing the bourgeois understanding of it. They did not strive to create “beautiful” art, but art that provoked discussion and explored ideas.
They employed various artistic techniques to express their anti-art philosophy. One of the most common was the ready-made technique, popularized by Marcel Duchamp. It involved taking a pre-existing object from everyday life and presenting it as a work of art — typically accompanied by a conceptual idea to justify the object’s new artistic status.
His most famous work is Fountain (pictured above), the original of which disappeared right after its first exhibition (all others are reproductions), but that wasn’t the point. The statement was about anti-art — about how anything can now be art because the nature of art itself is ever-changing. Duchamp took an existing object and formed a new and original thought connected to it.
A curious anecdote from a 1956 video interview reveals that Duchamp once offered to “pay” his dentist with a check he had hand-drawn on a piece of paper — without any bank verification. The dentist accepted. A decade later, Duchamp met the same dentist and bought back his readymade artwork — the fake check! (The dentist probably could’ve made much more if he’d passed it down as an heirloom.)
Dadaists also employed techniques like montage, collage, and assemblage to generate new connotations and meanings. They especially loved methods that had previously seemed incompatible with art — like using technology, mechanical processes, and random chance. This was a form of mockery toward rigid art canons and art critics.Many Dadaists, including Hans Arp, used the method of chance in the process of creating their artworks. (For example, they would cut out pieces of paper and, using creatively devised methods, determine how the pieces would fall onto a surface to create an image. Or they would use a machine for creation, or cut up a score for an orchestra, shuffle the notes, and create a new piece…) This was contrary to traditional artistic practice, which typically involved a premeditated plan. This technique of creating art without a plan or intention was a way for the Dadaists to challenge established practices and question the role of the artist in the creative process.
Dadaist writers loved the technique of automatic writing, which involves creating without prior planning or preparation, often using methods such as automatism, chance, and surrealism.
By using these techniques, the Dadaists focused on expressing creativity regardless of traditional artistic conventions and rules, thereby promoting an anti-art attitude toward art itself.
The Contemporary Artist and Political Themes
Today, more than ever, politics infiltrates the tools used by art, and artists are increasingly addressing political issues and social themes through their artistic expression. Naturally, people wonder who among them has sincere and humane intentions and who is driven by ego or purely by material gain. Ultimately, there’s also the question of whether those artists are even informed about what they are doing.
Guided by Dadaist ideas that still persist today, the contemporary artist must be careful not to become merely an instrument in the service of any ideology. The responsibility of the artist is even greater now, when every word, image, and statement on social media is instantly accessible to everyone. An artist who chooses to engage politically in their work must be informed about social issues, choose their words and expressions carefully, and stand behind everything they do with artistic and above all human integrity.
The Dadaist movement was one of the first in modern art to address political issues and critique the social problems of its time, and it did so in a fascinating way—using a wide range of mentioned artistic procedures and techniques such as collage, montage, and assemblage, all of which can be applied in a contemporary context. The Dadaists would likely agree that the use of new technologies developing by the day, social media, and new tools can be an exciting stimulus for the artist. Therefore, the artist should constantly learn and stay informed. It requires great personal engagement.
When it comes to the use of humor, satire in art and culture, and even mockery—despite the fact that times a hundred years ago were dangerous—one gets the impression that today’s artist needs to be even more cautious and continue to grapple with complex questions of freedom of speech. Everything is recorded, everything remembered—something humorous today can be very offensive tomorrow, or even retroactively punishable. We ask ourselves whether humor is dying, or if it needs to be deconstructed to suit the time in which we live. Dadaism focused on the deconstruction of art and culture, revealing the absurd and contradictory aspects of society and human behavior.
We can look at Dadaism as a state of mind that encompasses helplessness and rage in the face of injustice and absurdities in the society we live in—but also rebellion, creativity, and readiness for action. When faced with the wall of powerlessness, what often remains to preserve our sanity are humor, satire, bizarre ideas, and denial of everything. That’s what the Dadaists did.
Concepts That Contemporary Artists Might Explore Parallel to the Dadaists’ Era
These could include history repeating itself in endless cycles. Global problems, local interests: the eternal conflict between what is best for the whole world and what is best for individual countries and their political leaders…
An artist engaged with politics should not only criticize and expose problems without offering any alternative solution or a positive vision for the future. The counterargument is that such art should always be provocative, irresponsible, and free.
Why Does the Artist Create Works Open to Interpretation?
Dadaists often created works that were open to various interpretations. Some leaned toward directly expressing their political beliefs, while others preferred their works to be more open to interpretation. In any case, Dadaism was often aimed at rebelling against the art and society it saw as pretentious and hypocritical, so the messages in their works were layered and not always easy to understand.
Although a contemporary artist may have a clear political message they wish to convey through their work, leaving some parts abstract and open to interpretation allows a wider audience to engage in the conversation, find their own interpretations, conclusions, and meanings in the artwork.
With this approach, the audience may be more open, as the pressure to accept a specific political stance is removed. At the same time, it can enhance the artistic experience and increase the potential for creativity and innovation. Naturally, the eternal question arises—should an artwork even aim to reach a broader audience? Whom is it addressing, and for what purpose?
If an artwork is exclusively politically driven and imposing, it may easily be seen as promoting a specific political stance, which can diminish its artistic value.
Abstraction and freedom of interpretation, use of metaphors and ambiguity can also help the artist avoid accusations of propaganda and political bias—and maybe even protect themselves from censorship and attacks from the opposing side.
Let us recall, for example, poets who skillfully encoded their verses to criticize society and authority. Đorđe Balašević, in his song Chanson, humorously reveals his modus operandi:
“And everything that must not be said
I sneak through the chanson,
and when the authorities catch on
visiting hours are over.”
In short, for an artist dealing with political issues, leaving part of their work abstract and open to interpretation can help promote critical thinking, avoid accusations of political propaganda, encourage creativity and innovation, and enhance the artistic experience.
Dadaism as an Inspiration for All Who Create and Communicate
Besides artists and political activists, many people involved in any form of creative work could apply lessons from Dadaism in their profession.
Today, for instance, the interactions between Berlin Dada and advertising and popular culture are being re-examined. The changing of commercial practices within the art world contributed, at the beginning of the 20th century, to the growing commodification of art, while art was also invited into the marketplace of mass-produced goods. It was an interesting situation. Dadaists turned brand names and slogans into poetic concepts, creating montages intended to cause chaos and provoke resistance to the economic-political system, which was still negotiating its relationship with mass media and advertising.
One such “advertisement” read:
DADA – LLC for the exploitation of vocabulary.
Director: Tristan Tzara
Writers, and perhaps even those engaged in a kind of art therapy, could draw new ideas from Dadaist methods of chance or sound poetry, as well as from the strong emotions provoked by the absurdities and injustices the world brings us daily.
The American writer William S. Burroughs was known for his experimental writing approach and use of the “cut-up” technique. This technique involved physically cutting manuscripts into pieces and reassembling them into a new form to create a new story or poem. Burroughs applied this technique in his novels Naked Lunch and The Nova Express. He also used a method of “combining,” where he would randomly choose words from newspapers and magazines and combine them to create new stories.
David Bowie adapted Burroughs’ cut-up technique for writing lyrics, and Kurt Cobain also used this method for many of Nirvana’s lyrics, including In Bloom. Artists such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails also used this technique.
The cut-up technique thus regained popularity as a creative method across different artistic disciplines such as literature, film, music, and visual arts.
For example, in the music industry, cut-up is used in remixing and sampling. In literature, artists like Kathy Acker, Paul Auster, and J.G. Ballard have employed the technique. In visual arts, artists like Brion Gysin, John Stezaker, and David Bowie used similar methods like collage and montage. In film, directors such as David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino have used the cut-up technique.
Musician Frank Zappa declared himself a Dadaist after discovering the movement:
“In the early days, I didn’t even know what to call what my life consisted of. You can imagine my joy when I discovered that someone in a faraway land had the same idea—and even a short, catchy name for it.”
The Dadaists as Punk Rockers
Dadaists are much like punk rockers—breaking norms and crossing all pre-established boundaries in order to create subversive art without reverence.
Therefore, although Dadaism emerged in a specific historical and cultural context, its ideas and principles remain relevant in the modern world and can be connected to many aspects of contemporary life.
Personal Exploration of Dadaism
If you happen to travel to Zurich, I suggest exploring the Dadaist legacy that the city takes great pride in, as it became one of the most important cultural centers in Europe during that time. There are even Dada tours throughout the city, taking visitors to key locations tied to Dadaism, such as the Cabaret Voltaire, the Dada Museum, and other important sites. If you’re in Germany, the same goes for Berlin, which offers plenty of Dada-related content in its tourist tours. Cities like Cologne and Hanover also hold Dada significance, as do other mentioned places like Paris and New York.
In the early 1920s, the major cities of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia also showed a desire to follow radical avant-garde and Dadaist ideas. (In the 1980s, this topic inspired the film Splav Meduze [The Medusa Raft] by Slovenian director Karpo Godina.) There is recorded activity of Dadaist groups, as well as avant-garde journals such as Zenit, Dada Tank, and Dada Jazz.
Perhaps a few rare copies of these journals are still carefully preserved as family heirlooms by one of our readers…
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