So I feel I must preface this entry by stating that Dadaism is one of my great loves of Art, Marcel Duchamp ranks amongst my greatest influences in art and oddly life, and romanticize of being a man as influential, passionate, and brilliant as André Breton. Pretty much, love dadaism – something which I may have concluded on my own or I may have been taught, none the less, it is a driving force of much of the art of the 20th century and into today. As for the Bauhaus, their influence on contemporary theories of art and community they created is of great inspiration. The Futurists, brought about many great impacts in art as well, actually the ruling is honestly out on the Futurists… I feel that they advanced some incredible theories in art, movement through painting being one, but Marinetti’s work never really shocked or amazed me – maybe it’s just fast violent culture we live in, sue me. With that out of the way:
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As I was reading on Dadaism, Bauhaus, and the Futurists it is hard to not acknowledge their almost direct influence on our current state of art and it theory. This said, I started to wonder, if we admired the Dadaist so much why are we still trying to produce work like them – how not Dadaist, André Breton would certainly think we’re pathetic. I mean we’re all sitting around talking about how difficult it is to create an entirerly original work of art, so we look at the Dadaist, which is a good idea because they were incredibly original, political, and had an ability to recreate their societal influences in a way that even the street art of today is really just following under. As for art theory, we have philosophized and deconstructed and turned things upside down and inside out in our efforts to understand art, but really Post-Modernism isn’t all that advanced when we realize much of its theory is built often upon Dadaism and Futurism. And really what advances have been made in color theory that don’t make Josef Albers and the Bauhaus not look quite so brilliant? It is not much of a leap to link nearly all modern design work to the thoughts begun in the Bauhaus, either. If I was ambitious, I’d tell you architecture to but I don’t know enough in that area to touch on it, but I would not be surprised if it was just as highly influenced by these movements as well.
Now, I do not mean to say that this is a bad thing to take great inspiration from three of the great conceptual powerhouses of 20th century art and theory. Rather, it is a good thing, if we were still adapting our understanding of art just through Michelangelo or David then the variances of art would be incredibly depressing. I just feel that in our admiration for these great movements, we may depend on using their styles a little heavily and should strive to progress them rather than further popularize them. It is curious to note here that Duchamp did state at one point that he was never really creating art for people of his time but rather for those 100 years later, he felt his work would then really be understood. Maybe it was his hindsight-bias or maybe he really understood this to be true – He was not wrong though, and it hasn’t even been 100 years since Nude Descending a Stair Case, No. 2. Ultimately, we need to progress on their ideas because these three movements also died and burned our rather quickly… no timeless history paintings here. Not to mention the progression of Dadaist thought which became destructive and imploded upon itself through it’s distaste of everything. Breton was smart to leave when he did, “the 1918 Dada Manifesto seemed to open wide the doors, but we discovered that they opened onto a corridor which was leading nowhere.” Not long after in 1920 for the thirteenth issue of Littérature, the Dadaist poet Louis Aragon wrote:
No more painters, no more writers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no more royalists, no more republicans, nomore imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more Bolsheviks, no more politicians, no more proletarians, no more democrats, no more armies, no more police, no more nations, no more of these idiocies, no more, NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.
That said, it is hard to create more art when everything is nothing.
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I do have more positive thoughts for this subject that I want to get across, but I think I’ll have to save it for a second installation and let this one sink in.
mid riff note 