Dada in Australia
| Dada in Australia | First International Dada Fair, Berlin 1920 |
Dada?!@#$%
Dada - A new cult. Abolish everything! (The Age, Melbourne, 1920)
Dada is a rebellious, playful state of mind (Tristan Tzara 1922).
DOWN/unda
The death on 22 April 2023 of Australian comedian Barry Humphries (1934-2023) brought to a close an episode in antipodean history during which the early twentieth century avant-garde art and anarchic social movement Dada found local expression in the post-World War II period, through art, comedic performance and multi-faceted characterizations, most notably in the form of Humphries' Melbourne-based stunts and practical jokes, culminating in the creation of alter egos Dame Edna Everidge and Sir Les Paterson.
The first element of Humphries' career as a performer on the public stage was celebrated during 1993 by the National Gallery of Australia's smallish side exhibition Big - Barry Humphries: Dada Artist, a supplement to the blockbuster Surrealism: Revolution by Night (Holdsworth 2023). In 1952 Humphries, whilst at 1st year student at the University of Melbourne, held a solo exhibition entitled The First Pan-Australian Dada Exhibition. He went on to promote Dada throughout his career, though as very much a lone voice for an art movement which never took flight beyond his Victorian home town of Moonee Ponds.
But what of Dada in Australia prior to Humphries? Is there anything to see there? Melbourne 'art and culture critic' Mark Holdsworth, in a blog written two days after Humphries' death, refers to Dada as simply an anti-war movement, and claims that the pro-war, ANZAC ethos which emerged following the disaster of Gallipoli during 1915 was the main reason for its initial and ongoing rejection locally. A deeper dive into how the movement was received in Australia is warranted, as the mono-culture claim is far from the truth, just as it was in all those nations who sent their troops to war between 1914-18. The ANZAC mythology was both honouring individual participants and memorialising one of the nation's most tragic failures - something that, like the later Holocaust, should never be forgotten. Holdsworth's assertion that Dada was primarily anti-war is an ignorant assessment of the multifaceted monster that it was, as is his review of the Humphries 1993 exhibition as little more than prop comedy and a shitload of dreadful puns. Mind you, I am sure that the Dada artist it was directed at would have relished such a comment back in 1993, if not making a similar one himself.
Just as the death of Barry Humphries marked another milestone in the ongoing death of Dada - an art that was, and will forever remain, absurd, irreverent, anarchic and fun - so its imminent rebirth following a period of WOKE absurdity during which Dame Edna Everidge TRULY was a WOMAN simply because she/he/her/them said they were, is a sure bet.
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| Barry Humphries, Pus in Boots, 1952, reconstructed 1992. Exhibition: National Gallery of Australia, 1993. Source: Holdsworth 2023. |
Some of Humphries' Dada infatuation is described in Anne Pender's 2010 biography, alongside his own memoir and other writing, plus that of friend Keith Dunstan (Dunstan 1990, Humphries 2002, Pender 2010). The follow extract from Pender is a good introduction:
By the time Humphries began his studies in 1952, his taste for the bizarre and strange was well developed. He attempted to throw off the arrogant hauteur of his Grammar School contemporaries. Imaginatively he was still captivated by Dadaism and obsessed with grotesque parodies of art, and with forms that challenged the idea of art itself. It was as if he had been seduced by the savage aesthetic critique of the period after World War I. Barry studied the demonstrations of the French and German Dadaists of the 1920s, and he was particularly intrigued by Man Ray and Picabia. Later when photographed, Humphries would stare straight at the camera and make 'wild eyes', just as Dali and Man Ray had done for Carl Van Vechten. Dadaism was largely experimental and was based on freedom to play and to take changes. It was risky and confrontational; sometimes it was downright cruel. Humphries started to practice Dadaist trick and pranks around the city..... All of his pranks were carried out with dramatic flair and precision. He invented a character called Dr. Aaron Azimuth who embodied menace and insanity in the figure of a demented scientist who enjoyed tinkering with the personalities of his hapless victims, and who, Barry recalls vividly in his memoir (My Life as Me), resembled one of his favourite film characters, Dr Caligari... In his first year Humphries launched an exhibition, 'Piescapes.' It was his first organised Dadaist assault on the university... Barry was the most daring student prankster Melbourne University had ever known.... Humphries' Dada-inspired works and his street performances foreshadowed performance art in Australia. (Pender 2010)
Birth of Dada
Dada was born in Zurich, Switzerland, during the latter part of 1915, amidst a colony of artists, writers and performers escaping from, and formally rejecting, the horrors of the battlefields of World War I. Interestingly it's content largely steered clear of anti-war rhetoric, directing instead its energies into new and innovative areas of art, freeform writing and performance. The mindless and seemingly interminable slaughter of hundreds of thousands of soldiers was unprecedented, and immediately obvious to Europeans, despite the secrecy and media manipulation of the war machine and generals seeking fodder for the ravenous beast. It was only natural that art would emerge which reflected the state of society at that time, if not the slaughter directly. Dada was an extreme rejection of the status quo, in its expression and ideology. It was the ultimate head in the sand, unwilling to accept the necessity of horror as the path to peace. Dada was an anarchic, mild and ultimately harmless movement that seemingly ignored the war then raging around it. As such, Dada quickly spread throughout Europe and around the world, often adding colour and context to the prevailing zeitgeist in locales such as Tokyo, St. Petersburg, and New York, where fellow proponents of peace and latent Dadaists such as Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia sought refuge and inspiration.
It appears that Dada never landed in the Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand) during the war years, though elements of the Maori language did appear in its catalogue of verse, alongside African chants. When one refers to Dada in Australia it is usually to events following the official demise(s) during the mid' 1920s of this multifaceted, aesthetically anarchic movement and its late-in-the-day absorption into / hijacking by the "and now for something completely different" ism called Surrealism, under the leadership and direction of French writer and former Dadaist, Andre Breton and, to a lesser degree, the German Max Ernst. Dada was NOT Surrealism. Rather, Surrealism was a subset of Dada, a naughty child which sought expression primarily in the realm of works on canvas, photography and film. Surrealism took off; Dada died, not once but many times, subject as it was to numerous resurrections, by individualsand groups such as Barry Humphries and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Dada did not manifest to any degree in Australia during its initial period of activity in Europe and the United States between 1915-25. There does not appear to have been any local collective of practitioners or promoters. The earliest newspaper references appear following the war's end, during late 1919 and early 1920, and are usually reports from overseas papers. The censorship regime of the way years 1914-18 is obviously one reason for this, as the normal cross-continent reportage mechanisms were cutoff. Many of the post-1918 reports come out of England as second-hand comments on events within the defeated Germany. As such, they are often unduly critical and condescending in their ignorance, referring to Dada as 'freak art' and cultish. If it did manifest in any artistic form locally, this remains hidden, the victim of distance, apathy, and a generally conservative public and media critical of something so 'foreign' in the aftermath of a brutal war. Even during its height, many supporters and followers in Europe, America and elsewhere would, Judas-like, deny any association with Dada, or description as practicing Dadaists, such was the negative reaction it often engendered and the contradictory, bipolar, schizophrenic views of its adherents who, on occasion and in association with their belief in it, proudly denounced Dada in public and in print (Neumann 1994).
Yet the creation and evolution of Dada in metropolitan centres such as Zurich, Switzerland; Cologne and Berlin, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; St. Petersburg, Russia; and New York in the United States, was to have repercussions way beyond its foundation as the Cabaret Voltaire during the latter half of 1915 and through early 1916. This impact continued in the decades following its apparent demise, as, like a phoenix rising from the flames, a Neo-Dada art movement gained prominence following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. Social upheavals such as the 1960s countercultural revolution and mid 1970s punk movement in Britain have in turn been linked to Dada, and with good reason. The work of the British comedy collective Monty Python's Flying Circus during the late 1960s and early 1970s was Dadaist to it core - anarchic, outrageous and fun, with little regard or respect for conventional mores. The Sex Pistols' 1977 hit song Anarchy in the UK was Dadaist in both content and means of presentation - it was loud, colourful, bold, poetic and confronting to an outraged and ever-conservative establishment. It was essential Dada.
During the decade (1915-25) in which Dada flourished - as World War I raged and in the years immediately thereafter - artists, writers and performers such as Hans Arp, Emma Hennings, Hugo Ball, Marcel Janco, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Zara, Sophie Taeuber, Hannah Hoch, Georg Grosz, Francis Picabia and Man Ray actively engaged in the development and diversification of a modern art encompassing painting, collage, sculpture, photography, graphic design, music, theatre, film and literature, with a new, radical verse poetry prominent. It operated alongside the other emerging art movements of the time, with the closest being Bauhaus, German Expressionism and Cubism. Dada encompassed numerous forms of artistic expression, but at its core was a rebellious attitude against conservative norms and established practices. These were most evident at the time in the form of an horrific war, social inequality - often based around race - and the tight reins of the national art academies. These stresses and constraints were something which more than just artists could relate to, and did. And it was not in Europe alone that Dada quickly took root.
Dada was generally a youthful movement, led by individuals such as Tristian Tzara (1896-1963), who in 1915 was just 19 years old. Most of its active practitioners and supporters were in their twenties or early thirties, born into a world of political conflict, rapid industrialization and seemingly unstoppable modernization. Dada was bold, brash, energetically raw and relevant. As such, it drew widespread criticism from authority, the older generation, and the arts establishment. It also engendered enthusiastic engagement with free spirited and free thinking artists, bohemians and collectors.
"Dada is ephemeral: it's death is an act of its own free will... Dada will not die of Dada. It's laughter has a future." (Richard Hulsenbeck 1920)
Dada's official, initial, premature 'death' as an active movement came in 1922 with the claim that 'Dada is Dead!' by one of the founders of Cologne Dada, Max Ernst (1891-1976). This was followed up later that same year by Tristan Tzara, and again in 1925 through proclamations by Andre Breton (1896-1966) and the French. Dada has since seen numerous reincarnations, and survives as the intangible influence it remains to this day.
Dada has often been cited as the most influential art movement of the 20th century, though it is also recognised as the most nebulous and least understood, or even little known. During 2016 a BBC documentary team hit the streets asking famous, and not so famous, people "What is Dada?" Many knew of it, lived it, performed it, but could not define it. In fact, practitioners such as Terry Gilliam of Monty Python's Flying Circus fame actively resisted a demand to define it, which in itself was a pure expression of Dada (BBC 2016). Dada is fun, exciting, scary, sweet, colourful and monotone, finished and unfinished. It is everything and nothing. Dada is the first and last piece in the jigsaw puzzle - it is also the puzzle itself. Dada is proactive and reactive. It has no beginning and no end. It is neither predecessor nor antecedent; neither does it stand alone. A Dadaist can also be a Cubist, Futurist, Surrealist, punk, comedian, performer, poet, musician or anything else, or nothing (Kuenzli 2006).
It's Alive!!!
Australia largely encountered Dada third-hand through the press during that initial period from its formation at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich during 1915-16 through to official pronouncements of its birth, rise and death in Berlin and Paris throughout the first half of the 1920s. An exhibition of European art which toured to Sydney and Melbourne in 1923 supposedly included works from the Dada movement. Two are referred to in a Sydney newspaper review, though their classification is debatable as they are hardly typical Dada works - one is a slightly naive, rather pretty landscape in watercolour by a French artist, and the other a portrait by a Dutch artist. Within that specific instance, these so-called examples of Dada were buried amidst a small collection of Cubist and other examples of modernist movements tending towards abstraction. These, in turn, were labelled in reviews as a 'Chamber of Horrors', hung amidst a plethora of traditional landscapes, portraits, still life and mythological panoramas so popular with Australian galleries at the time. No other showing of 'Dada' art in Australia is known during this interwar period (1918-1939).
Generally speaking, newspaper reportage was responsible for bringing Dada to the notice of the Australian public, with very few magazines or journals commenting upon it in any detail. Images of related artworks and performances were largely non-existent. Reaction at the time was therefore mute, and it was only after World War II, with events such as Barry Humphries’ Dada exhibition of 1952 and his subsequent outrageous, comedic performances in the name of Dada, that it appears to have entered the wider public consciousness as a form of anarchic expression beyond the mere confines of a now-dead 'ism' (Reid 2010, Brown 2014). This late rebirth was followed during the 1960s by Dadaesque manifestations within Pop art and the counterculture movement. Artists such as Martin Sharp and his colleagues at OZ magazine, including the writer Richard Neville and artist / filmmaker Garry Shead, were active exponents of Dada (if not in name) and provocateurs, alongside the ever outrageous Humphries. Sharp and Neville took OZ to London in 1966 and thrived amidst an environment of countercultural revolution and freedom of expression throughout Western Europe, stirred on by wars and conflict - a Cold war, another traditional slaughter in Vietnam, and during 1968 protest on the streets of Paris and in campuses across America. Indeed, perhaps the most well known modern manifestation of the Dada ethic has been the British Oxbridge movement of the 1960s led by indivuals such as Peter Cook, rooted in the Goons and culminating in the performance troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus, whose anarchic presentations on stage, screen, vinyl and in print since 1969 have carried on the Cabaret Voltaire tradition, though with an emphasis on biting comedy rather than strident polemic and anarchic poetry. Terry Gilliam, with his animated collage and off-centered film direction, including the failure to remake Don Quixote, personifies Neo-Dada.
Dada Lives! was a catch cry both during the life of the original movement and thereafter, reflecting its initially precarious state of existence, diversity in regards to forms of expression, increasing importance, and persistent influence alongside persistent failure. When Francis Picabia announced his separation from Dada in May 1921, he proclaimed somewhat prophetically, 'Dada will live forever!' If Dada were to speak to us today, Suri-like, it would undoubtedly say - reflecting the words of Mark Twain - “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!
Death downunda
What then of Dada in Australia between 1915-1925? Events in Europe and elsewhere were reported in the local newspapers, most of which were sourced from British equivalents or affiliates. As a result, a performance, soiree or exhibition in Paris during 1920-23, for example, could be reported in a London paper, which would in turn be copied in part or whole within a newspaper or magazine in locales such as Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and regional centres. Local commentary could also be added. As such, there was scope for information on Dada, though somewhat delayed, to be dispersed far and wide throughout Australia during the years of its active existence. For example, a brief report on events connected with the landmark First International Dada Fair held in Berlin between 30 June - 25 August 1920 appeared in the Adelaide newspaper The Advertiser, on 2 October 1920. A brief survey of digitized and indexed newspapers available through the National Library of Australia's TROVE database reveals that such reporting occurred sporadically as the terms Dada, Dadaiste or Dadaism became accepted internationally in connection with a new modern art movement, alongside Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism and the various other "isms" then in vogue.
The influence of such reporting on local artists and the establishment remains unclear. It does not appear to have generated activity such as the formation of a local interest group, presentation of a Dada performance, or the mounting of an independent exhibition of Dada artworks during its lifetime. In addition, we could ask: did the numerous Dada magazines, booklets and exhibition programs published overseas, and usually in foreign languages such as German or French, get to Australia in a timely fashion? Was there correspondence between any of the major figures in the Dada movement and interested parties in Australia? Did any Dada artworks reach the country prior to 1926? And, did any Australian expatriate artists, intellectuals or collectors, such as London resident Syd Long, actively participate in, or observe, Dada events during its heyday? These are questions not easily answered, and, based on the evidence to date, they are questions which are generally answered in the negative. Australian artists such as Rupert Bunny, Ivan Willie Brooks, Stella Bowen, Margaret Preston, Grace Crowley, Baker Clarke, John Farmer, Bernie Gibson, Agnes Goodsir, France's Hodgkins and Ethel Carrick Fox were all working in Paris, for example, in 1924-5 but are not known to have engaged with Dada (Abbs 2016). Were any Australians in the audience at the Cabaret Voltaire during 1916, or the Borchart Gallery, Berlin, in 1920, or the Marcel Theatre, Paris, in 1921 to engage directly with Dada art and performance? It is possible.
There may be a number of reasons why Dada failed to ignite in Australia during the early 1920s. It was a bohemian, avant-garde, anarchically philosophical and aesthetic movement, often at odds with conservative arts establishments and the authorities. After the war it evolved in Germany, and racist attitudes in Australia and Great Britain against Germans and German culture were prominent. Many of the reports of overseas Dada activities in the Australian newspapers reflect the difficulties this new, vibrant and radical movement faced in being accepted on its merits. Even during the 1920s it was presented as a perversion, which was a precursor to its later presentation by the Nazi's under Adolf Hitler as a deviant art. Also, Dada evolved in Europe during the years of World War I and shortly thereafter. As a result, associated tensions and political and racial affiliations came into play on all fronts. For example, there was a great deal of Dada activity in Berlin shortly after the end of the war, at a time when both the victors and the Germans were far from pacified. This may have led to a bias against the reporting of activities in that country by British newspapers, and a preference for those related events taking place in Paris, London or New York. This would had substantial implications for interested observers in Australia, as the focus of Dada activities moved from Zurich to Berlin in 1919 and then on to Paris after 1920. Racial biases are evident in many of the reports which reached Australia and make reference to Dada.
Evidence, and lack thereof
A number of significant reports on Dada events overseas appeared in Australian newspapers prior to 1926. Some of those identified are reproduced below in part or full and presented in chronological order. They reveal the limited amount of information provided to the general public concerning Dada. Of course, the local artist fraternity would have had access to published and other printed material relating to the various overseas art movements, including Dada, whilst some of the soldiers who survived the war and had an interest in art may have come across it whilst engaged in the French Western Front. Much of the published material available locally was of a literary nature, with minimal description or discussion of Dada artworks, performances and philosophical direction. This reflects the changing focus on activities within the Dada movement as its chief proponents moved location. For example, Zurich Dada from 1915 to 1919 focused on poetry, performance and art; German Dada through 1919-20 on art and public, political engagement; and French Dada after 1920 on literary aspects. New York Dada was a mix of art, literature and hanging out with the Arensbergs, noted collectors.
The earliest reports on Dada in the Australian newspapers date from 1919 and peak during 1920-1. Unfortunately, by 1919 Berlin and Paris were the focus of reportage in the British newspapers, as Zurich had waned following the cessation of hostilities on the European battlefields in November 1918. This was followed by the dispersal of the Swiss refugee community to their home countries or emigration to the United States, with New York becoming a focus for Dada-friendly activity in that country, led by individuals such as Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Gloria Wood. Few reports on Dada New York activities reached Australia, though significant movements in modern art were occurring there, with events such as the Armory Show of 1913 a catalyst. Likewise, reports on the Cabaret Voltaire did not appear in Australian newspapers until 1920, by which time it had long since closed its doors. Prior to this, the word dada was only used locally as a term of endearment in reference to the father of a child. During the war, the word Dadanelles attained infamy in connection with the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. It appears that it was only after the war ended, and the general censorship regime operating during that period was lifted, that information began to flow out of Europe in regard to burgeoning art movements such as Dada. The newspaper and magazine reports reproduced below are a mere snapshot of the movement and reactions to it.
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Dada in print
1919
* Gippsland Times, Monday, 13 October 1919. The Great Dada. Brief report on a Dada public demonstration in Weimar, Germany, involving the Supadada Johannes Baader. The radical nature of Dada is immediately apparent, as is reference to it as a brain sickness and a cultish, semi-religious sect. The demonstration apparently ended in violence.
THE GREAT DADA.
Remarkable symptoms of brain sickness are reported from Weimar, where votaries of the sect of the Dadaists - a religious order which worships the Great Dada - demonstrated before the National Assembly building. They were attired in fantastic dresses such as Sioux Indians wear, and played weird music, while a phonograph continuously cried "Dada." The public in the streets tried in vain to convince the demonstrators that it was better for them to go home, and finally set about to disperse the demonstrators. Some of the holy men were rather roughly ill-treated, and, after a short fight, the demonstrators fled wildly, crying "Dada, Dada."
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The use of a single word - Dada - to express a range of emotions and responses, is typical of the movement, just as it also used a collection of indistinguishable sounds or word salad in its literary presentations and performances. The modern Disney tree person Grot comes to mind here, with its colleagues able to understand all it says, though only a single word is uttered - Grot.
It is interesting to note that the proponents of Dada are presented as demonstrators rather than street performers, and that they were met with violence. Why? What was so intimidating or threatening about their message? And who were the perpetrators who forced them to stop? Berlin during the post WWI period was a place of political and social turmoil, with thousands of damaged souls drawn there in pursuit of relief from their suffering, whether it be physical due to the war, or psychological. Sensibilities were frayed. It was both an exciting and dangerous place to be, for men and women alike. Tolerance for so-called peaceniks and lunatic bohemians would have been limited.
* The Telegraph, Brisbane, 15 January 1920. Dadaism in Berlin. Growing in Germany. A detailed description is given of Dada as manifest in Berlin, with reference to the activities of Johannes Baader, known as the Super Dada or Grand Dada and referred to in the previous article. It is a descriptive, positive piece referring to many aspects of Dada, including its idiosyncratic, absurd nature.
DADAISM IN BERLIN.
GROWING IN GERMANY.
"F.A.," writing to the Manchester "Guardian," in October last, says “When Martinetti came to London to preach Futurism, he talked much sense and much nonsense, but even his nonsense was full of scintillations. When the Grand Dada came to Berlin to preach Dadaism at the Klindworth Hall, it was difficult to find any sense at all in what he said, and the scintillations of his mind were not very brilliant. "What is Dada?" he asked, and remarked that it was hard to tell what Dada is, that Dada escaped definition, that even if it were explained it would be almost impossible for the uninitiated to understand the explanation, and so on for 20 minutes or more. Then, as though in answer to his question, he spoke of Cosmic Consciousness, of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, of the Atomisation of Matter, and (inevitably) of the Theory of Relativity. . . . "What the Theory of Relativity is on a physical plane, that Dada is on a spiritual plane." The Grand Dada finished his hour-long sermon by meeting all the objections to his cult. Dada is rubbish, say some. Of course it is rubbish, he readily admitted, and is meant to be rubbish, for mankind has suffered too long from the oppressive tyranny of Philistine common sense. Dada is unintelligible. . . of course it is unintelligible, for it is a new cosmic conception, and our language still is too undeveloped to reveal Dada except by dark symbols and paradoxes. Dada is humbug . . of course, it is humbug, for one of its aims is to lead mankind away from the transparent, superficial realm of the sincere and obvious into the profounder reality of illusion and delusion. And so every possible objection was refuted. To attack Dada is to punch a cloud of smoke. One thing at least is clear about Dada - that it is lucrative. The Klindworth Hall was packed and the seats were expensive. The audience listened patiently all the time, except for a few whistles and catcalls by a disrespectful few, instantly drowned by indignant hissing from the respectful many. Berlin evidently appreciates Dada. But then Berlin is the craziest town in a country not oversane.
One of Dada's specialties is "Simultaneous Poetry." When the Grand Dada had finished his lecture, three other Dadaists stepped on to the platform and recited a "Simultaneous Poem," reading three different pieces loudly and simultaneously from three different sheets, now quickly, now slowly, while the Grand Dada kept time by waving his hands up and down like the conductor of an orchestra. The audience was immensely tickled by the performance. The Dadaists have thrown all poetry except their own on to the rubbish heap. The following paean of victory is taken from their latest manifesto:-
"The angular cerebellum of the bourgeois, contusioned by kicks from our hobnailed boots, dangles mournfully in the air like a piece of sackcloth. . . Our whistle blast (blown on the ground floor key of a lunatic asylum) has electrified them, has jumped through the Gothic carving of their cars, and has trampled their car drums underfoot."
A little of this kind of thing is not unentertaining, but after the first few coruscations have fizzled out it becomes rather dull. Besides, it hardly reveals the precise nature of Dada poetry. I cannot discuss "Simultaneous Poetry" because I did not understand a word of the only simultaneous poem I ever heard. But all Dada poems are not simultaneous, and the following verses, published only a few days ago and therefore hot from the oven, so to speak, will perhaps give some idea of what Dada can do. They are entitled "Wobble." I have translated them in the original metre:-
Venom pulsates, hammers, stamps.
Pain, staggers volts through my skull.
Why write ?
Cold is drizzling.
They say it's warm In Italy.
What a stupid crowd these human beings are.
If only we had the courage.
But cowardice is more dignified.
And very much more difficult.
The young lady loved ten men in one evening.
My saliva is freezing.
And yet - the forest, the flowers, the sun!
My head sags wearily.
I want to write,
Oh - Ah - Hm.
If I had a revolver now
I'd go and sell it to the nearest hawker.
These verses are hardly typical, for they do convey a few fairly distinct impressions, a kind of atmosphere, and a mood, whereas Dada poetry usually prides itself on its unintelligibility. But even typical Dada poetry does not compare with Dada painting. Take some coloured paper, some magazine illustrations, and, if you like, a map of Europe, a printed handbill, and similar odds and ends. Cut them into triangles and paste them in disorder on a piece of cardboard, and you have a Dada picture.
In the Hugo exhibition of Berlin painters that has been open since the 21st May the so-called "November Group" of Futurists, Expressionists, Suprematists and Dadaists is strongly represented. The most original of them all is the Dadaist Yefim Golysheff, whose masterpieces take up an entire wall in one of the exhibition rooms. I shall try to describe two particularly striking manifestations of his genius. A couple of herring-bones, left over from Yefim’s breakfast perhaps, are stuck on to a soiled sheet of paper, and clinging to one of them is a minute insect, dead and dust-covered. Underneath is a brown smudge, and seated right across the sheet are two rows of ink-pots. This unsavory collection of dirt and refuse is called a "Water Colour Study." Glued on to a map of European Russia is a slice of dark brown war-bread. Fastened just below the top of the slice is a big black button. Above it is an oblong piece cut out from the lid of a cardboard cigarette-box and labelled "Egyptian Cigarettes." Projecting from the left-hand crust and flattened up against the map is a longish piece of soap. Below the place where the soap joins the crust are about a dozen halves of French matches arranged in two rows. Underneath is the photograph of a motorcar cut out from some illustrated paper. The slice of bread represents a face. The button an eye. The cigarette-box a hat. The piece of soap a nose. The matches teeth. The whole composition is a portrait of Yefim driving a car. Perhaps this picture is the herald of a new art, an art combining literature and painting, biography and portraiture. Does the map mean that Yefim comes from Russia ? Is he fond of smoking Egyptian cigarettes in French cafes ? And does he want a wash?
The other members of the November Group are not quite so daring as Yefim, for they paint in ordinary oils, only occasionally using buttons, bits of glass, matches and tinfoil so as to achieve a happy union of the real and the ideal. To stand in the middle of a big room hung with pictures by the November Group is quite an experience. The vivid glare of crimson, green, blue and yellow triangles, squares, spirals, and geometrical intricacies, the demented leering of barely recognisable human features horribly distorted and painted with all the sickly and lurid hues of putrefaction, the chaotic jumble of objects that look like swaying streets and tottering houses, all hustled together in mad confusion within rectangular frames (the frames at least are normal), beat vehemently upon the eyes, so that one begins to feel dizzy and to doubt one's sanity.
But the list of Dada's achievements is not complete. Take a snapshot out of focus, paint some smudgy triangles in subdued colours on the background, or put the whole picture into triangles and paste them in disorder on a piece of paper, and you have a Dada photograph. There are several exhibited in a shop window Unter den Linden. I have not yet heard any Dada music, but it is said to be very realistic. There is also such a thing as a "Dada Dance." It is surprising that Dada can exist at all, but, having obtained a start by dexterous advertisement, it is now able to collect big audiences. Some weeks ago a Dada meeting was broken up at Chemnit (probably by sturdy, irascible Communists who wanted their money back), and the Grand Dada was saved from injury only by the intervention of his devotees. Then the Reichswehr Ministry, behaving as though the Kaiser still were on the throne, confiscated some Dada cartoons that seemed to ridicule the officer class. In this way Dada has won the additional prestige of martyrdom. The new rich of Berlin, utterly demoralised, restless and always eager for new sensations, are not the kind of public to be taken in by Dada. Nevertheless, Dada, the November Group, and similar impostures must not obfuscate the fact that genuine and very remarkable Impressionist art is growing up in Germany, quite unsuspected by the outer world and only half realised by the Germans themselves.
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Note the distinction made above between Dada and emerging German Expressionist art, one which was often confused due to areas of overlap in regard to proponents and output. Of course the latter would find expression and notoriety in German film during the 1920s, with productions such as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, whose sets are Expressionist in the extreme.
1920
* The Age, Melbourne, Saturday, 17 April 1920, Republished in The Daily News, Perth, 27 April. This article provides both an interesting description of Dada, along with a damning critique by a London correspondent, including quotes from the work of Tristan Tzara. The writer compares German Expressionism and Futurist art with Dada.
DADAISM.
THE NEWEST CULT.
ABOLISH EVERYTHING.
From our Correspondent. London, 11th March.
The penalty of being extreme is that, with the progress of events, extremists are easily displaced from their pedestal by advocates of greater extremes, who regard their immediate predecessors as conventional. The progress of events has not quite caught up to the extreme standards of Futurism in painting, sculpture, music and literature, but in these progressive days even those people who are old fashioned enough to refuse to venture outside the safety of conventional limits have to admit that they are less antagonistic than they were before the war to the works of the Futurists. Some of the pictures painted by these exponents of anarchical forms of art are to be found adorning the walls of conventional art galleries in the Bond-street quarter of London, where many of the art societies hold their exhibitions, and some have been purchased for the nation to form part of the treasures of the Imperial War Museum. It is true that there are critics who have protested against the expenditure of public money on daubs which they declare are an atrocious libel on British troops, and an outrage on human intelligence, but on the whole an attitude of tolerance towards Futurism in art has begun to manifest itself. It is suggested by the advocates of tolerance that Futurism, Cubism and Vorticism may have a message of some kind to deliver to humanity, and the fact that so far it has been delivered in gibberish does not necessarily imply that gibberish will always be regarded as an unintelligible form of speech. It is possible (they argue) that mankind may yet resort to gibberish as a common form of speech, which offers less difficulties as a universal language than Esperanto. But no sooner has Futurism begun to merge itself into the present than a new and more extreme movement arises with more sweeping standards of iconoclasm, which will sweep away not only the conventions of the past but everything past, present and future, whether conventional or unconventional.
The new cult is known as the Dada movement, and its creed is the abolition of everything because of the futility of everything. In English, dada is the baby word for father; in Russia dada means a house; in Roumania it means a nurse; in Italy it is the infantile word for mother, and the Krou Negroes use the word for the tale of a sacred cow. But the exponents of the new movement have selected the name of Dada as something that means nothing. The Dadaists contend that man's senses are not true registers of the external universe, and that his actions and words in relation to the universe are futile. Since man's words and actions are of no more value than the gibberings and gestures of lunatics, let us recognise that we are all lunatics, and behave as such, say the Dadaists. Let us abolish everything - art, literature, the family, morality, logic, common sense, memory, the past, the present and the future.
The new movement was born at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916, the founder being M. Tristan Tzara. It has reached Paris, but so far has not reached England. At the first Dadaist meeting in Paris, which was unsympathetically described in the Parisian newspapers, several interesting Dadaist speeches were delivered. The Dadaists scorn intelligent speech, and therefore these speeches consisted of a strange and varied assortment of cries and howls. For the benefit of the uninitiated the creed of Dadaism was formally announced in words as: -
No more God.
No more aristocrats.
No more middle class.
No more art.
No more beauty.
No more literature.
No more music.
No more anything.
The battle cry which was delivered at the meeting resembles the war cry of an American football team. It is "Dada, dada, tra, la, la, la, I jeer at you. Dada, dada." At the first general congress of Dadaists, which was held recently at Zurich, a resolution was carried declaring that "the discharge of weapons in Dadaist discussions is not only authorised, but is to be commended, seeing that it has an element of novelty, and gives a new and refreshing point of view." A correspondent of the "Daily Mail" who attended the exhibition of pictures which the Dadaists arranged at Geneva states: -
The first work which caught my eye consisted of three large chunks of wood, one orange, one blue and one green, glued on a background of multi-colored stripes. In a corner were three brass-headed carpet tacks, and four matches and a postage stamp gazed lovingly at two boot buttons and a piece of embroidery in the foreground. The catalogue described it as "Dawn on Lake Neuchatel." A voice at my side interrupted my bewilderment: "That, my friend," it was saying, “is a beautiful portrait in C sharp minor, vibrating with Hertzian waves, of a municipal councillor suffering from foot and mouth disease." I looked and saw some triangular pieces of colored paper, with a few fragments of copper wire, some corks, a cabbage stalk, and several toothpicks grouped here and there in artistic confusion.
M. Tristan Tzara, the founder of the movement, has published a book of Dadaist poems written in French. All of the poems depend on typographical eccentricities to reveal their intention - absurdity. The following is one of the poems: -
It must be nearly fifty years ago that a certain little coterie of Oxford undergraduates, most of whom were no doubt of a mystic, not to say a transcendental, turn of mind, established a magazine which was known as "The Dark Blue." In the very first number of this esoteric production, a remarkable poem entitled "The Sun of My Songs," appeared with intent to stagger the intelligence of the bewildered reader. One verse ran as follows.
* The Advertiser, Adelaide, 2 October 1920. Letter from London - Freak Art (Extract). Brief critical comment on Berlin Dada.
1921
* The Sun, Sydney, 9 January 1921. Streets of Paris.
* The Sun, Sydney, 1 May 1921. New Paris Cocktail.
* The Herald, Melbourne, Tuesday, 14 June 1921. A literary review of Dada poetry and writing, in close association with that of the Futurists.
* Art in Australia, number 11, December 1921. Syd Long interview with A.G. Stephens. Long was an Australian artist then resident in London. He was a landscape painter and also one of the founders of the British Society of Graphic Arts.
That is really a conservative Society of earnest and thoughtful painters, etchers, and black-and-white artists. It represents a back-to-drawing movement, back-to-structure, back-to-the-bones, which we think you must have before you can state to put impressionist flesh on. It has been felt for a good while among the best minds of English art that Impressionism, Cubism, Vorticism, Dada, and the rest, were being carried too far. Nature was lost in a kind of mental wilderness. Truth was lost in outrageous decoration with some alleged miracle of meaning that only the decorator and the people he hypnotised could see.
1922
* The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, Friday, 25 August 1922. Opera Ball for Children's Hospital. On this occasion a group came to the ball dressed as 'Les Dadaists' and another a Futurists. Both were arranged by Mrs. Bayley and Mrs. Dudley-Smith. It is not known exactly what these costumes comprised, or what they were based on, though there were some reports in Australian newspapers at the time around Dada and Paris fashion.
* The Western Mail, Perth, 14 December 1922. Paris in the Looking Glass.
1923
* The Sun, Sydney, 5 June 1923. Sanity in Art - Exhibition for London - A Show of Sunshine.
The traditional art that clutters up this exhibition actually represents things as they are, while the futurists and other "ists" have taken a great step forward, and triumphantly represent things as they aren't and never could be. Pathetic it is to a confirmed vorticist like myself are the sincere, but misplaced efforts of the modern masters to give us beautiful color and perfect tone and nature seen through the artists' temperament. As if any of those things matter twopence to the futurist! So with a shudder of horror I hurried through the galleries that displayed these atrocities of modern and renowned Royal Academicians, and found peace in the mystic revelations of the so-called "Chamber of Horrors."
The seascape by [Raol] Dufy (95gns.) [#540 - La fenetre sur la mer / The window to the sea] is the most delightful da-da-ist picture in the show.
The artist conforms strictly to the rule of this school by drawing the iron-work of the balcony all askew, for the beauty of the moonlit sea beyond should absorb all the spectator's interest. It does, too, owing to the inspiration that induced the artist to draw 100 little black-outlined triangles to represent 100 waves. Close examination of the deliberately distorted shutter indicates that Dufy has gone beyond the da-da-ists, and now proclaims himself the leader of the infantist school.
[Kees] Van Dongen's masterpiece of a green lady, anxiously wondering if she has another camisole in the wash, is another triumph of the da-da-ist method, modestly priced at 330gns [#574 - Comtesse d'Archante - illustrated in black and white in the review] .
Wladimir Polunin has two exquisite examples of the cubist school. One is entitled "Folk Dance" and the other "Russian Fair"; and one is worth twice the other, though it is difficult to see why. "The Dance" shows Mephistopholes, with angel's wings and a cylindrical head, and a Marguerite with a head like a lead pencil; but in the companion picture the artist has overcome this pardonable weakness and made his men and women perfectly triangular. It would make a brilliant illustration for any book of Euclid. Violet Polurina has a sister to this masterpiece. It is titled "Across the Fence." Though a K.A. might think it distinctly over the fence, this charming cubist idyll will repay the closest study. The skirt of the cubist damsel is a perfect triangle — and what more could any cubist artist want?
With his picture of a castle, de Waroquier [#509 - Entrevaux] proclaims himself the perfect vorticist. Nature abhors a vacuum, but loves a vortex. Einstein would delight in this glorious conception. Even the sky is cut up into vortices, or, maybe isotherms.
"The Barn" is available for 75gns. Criticism is in despair before this mystical and alluring picture. The artist, S. Ivon Hitchens, has made the pardonable mistake of attempting to explain this curly-curly example of curvist school.
He airily remarks that it is an essay in essential form and the dynamic relation of one plane to another. The essential form of a barn is a wild whirlpool of foliage sawn into big blocks in dynamic relation to a Chinese pagoda. Sargeant, for all his genius, never did anything like this; though Augustus John, the leader of the Blague-ist school, has valiantly attempted it. The main precept of this school is to look steadily at the object and see how it can be distorted. Augustus John fails, however, in his attempt to follow his master, Matisse, by allowing the spectator to discover what his seascape is about. The picture that shows curved omnibuses corkscrewing through intoxicated streets, with dipsomanlc buildings conforming to the curves, is a pure study in speed. It indicates in the most marvellous manner the vibration caused by these juggernauts. All the evidences indicate that it was painted in a bus. The picture of the green costers in purple and green trousers is a blot on this collection, as these figures are recognisably human. As for the landscapes, some are greener than the others, and some couldn't be. Every da-da-ist is earnestly recommended to study these examples of the new art with the earnestness with which they were conceived. If only the rest of the pictures wore turned to the wall the exhibition would merit the highest praise.
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* The Age, Melbourne, 18 August 1923. The Dadaistes Take a Hand. When Paris Takes Itself Seriously.
1924
* The West Australian, Perth, 6 May 1924. Woman's Interest. Paris in the Looking Glass. Brief mention of Dada in relation to fashion.
1968
1984
1993
2015
- a group of contemporary Australian artists stage an exhibition entitled Dada Lives! at the Hatch Contemporary Artspace, Ivanhoe, New South Wales. This exhibition celebrated the centenary of the birth of Dada in Zurich, and revealed its ongoing influence.
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References
Abbs, Annabel, Australian women sought inspiration in 1920s Paris art scene, The Australian, 4 November 2016.
BBC, Dada: The Original Art Rebels, BBC Television, 2016.
Brown, Jenny, They're odd but we love ‘em, Domain, 31 August 2013. Available URL: https://www.domain.com.au/news/theyre-odd-but-we-love-em-20130829-2ssyy/.
Dadaism in Australia, Who Ha Dada [website], 24 January 2020.
Holsworth, Mark, Barry Humphries and Dada in Australia, Black Mark: Melbourne art and culture critic [blog], 27 April 2023.
Hulsenbeck, Richard, DADA Almanac, Berlin, 1920.
Humphries, Barry, More Please, Penguin, Ringwood, 1992.
-----, My Life as Me, Penguin, Camberwell, 2003, 352p.
-----, Big - Barry Humphries, Dada Artist, National Gallery of Australia, 1993. Exhibition plus booklet.
Kuenzli, Rudolph, Dada, Phaidon Press, London, 2006.
Neumann, Francis M., New York Dada 1915-23, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1994, 255p.
Pender, Anne, One Man Show - The Stages of Barry Humphries, ABC Books, 2010, 454p.
Reid, Graham, Barry Humphries on and off the record: the early years of an agent provocateur, Elsewhere, 7 July 2010.
Tara, Tristan, Lecture on Dada, 1922.
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| Dada in Australia | First International Dada Fair, Berlin 1920 |
Michael Organ, Australia
Last updated: 23 November 2023
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