MoMa & Dada

World War I and Dada
What is Dada and why did it come into existence?
Dada is an untraditional style of art that pushed the boundaries that were previously established. It came into existence during the first world war. 

Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade

·      Discuss Duchamp’s notion of “Readymades”.  What are they?
He believed that common, manufactured goods are art. This challenged the thought that art had to be beautiful made by a skilled person.

How do they change your expectations about what art can be?
This changes expectations of what art is because you can look at anything and say that is art. You can look at anything and say someone took time to make this and this classifies as art. 

Chance Creations: Collage, Photomontage, and Assemblage

·      Dada artists turned to non-art making strategies…

o   What did they embrace?
Artists embraced and critiqued modernity. They started making collage, photomontage, and assemblage.
Why did they take this approach?

They took references from newspapers, film, and advertisements that defined everyday life. It was a form of protest and critiquing the increasingly mechanized, violent world in which they lived. 

Artist Collaboration

·      What is the value of art made by Dadaists?
Dadaists believed that the value of art lay not in the work produced, but in the act of making and collaborating with others to create new visions of the world.

Word Play

·      How and why did Dada artists work with words?
These experiments were meant to expose the relationship between words and their meanings.