Dada or Dadaism [French, from dada, child's word for a horse]
Nihilistic movement in the arts that flourished chiefly in France, Switzerland,
and Germany from about 1916 to about 1920 [and later -ed.] and that was based
on the principles of deliberate irrationality, anarchy, and cynicism and the rejection
of laws of beauty and social organization. The most widely accepted account of
the movement's naming concerns a meeting held in 1916 at Hugo Ball's Cabaret (Café)
Voltaire in Zürich, during which a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary
pointed to the word dada; this word was seized upon by the group as appropriate
for their anti-aesthetic creations and protest activities, which were engendered
by disgust for bourgeois values and despair over World War I. In the United States
the movement was centered in New York at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, "291," and
at the studio of the Walter Arensbergs. Dada-like activities, arising independently
but paralleling those in Zürich, were engaged in by such chiefly visual artists
as Man Ray and Francis Picabia. Both through their art and through such publications
as The Blind Man, Rongwrong, and New York Dada, the artists attempted to demolish
current aesthetic standards. Traveling between the United States and Europe, Picabia
became a link between the Dada groups in New York City, Zürich, and Paris; his
Dada periodical, 291, was published in Barcelona, New York City, Zürich, and Paris
from 1917 through 1924. In 1917 the Dada movement was transmitted to Berlin, where
it took on a more political character. The Berlin artists, too, issued Dada publications:
Club Dada, Der Dada, Jedermann sein eigner Fussball ("Everyman His Own Football"),
and Dada Almanach. In Paris Dada took on a literary emphasis under one of its
founders, the poet Tristan Tzara. Most notable among Dada pamphlets and reviews
was Littérature (published 1919-24), which contained writings by André Breton,
Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, and Paul Éluard. After 1922, however, Dada faded
and many Dadaists grew interested in surrealism. Quoted from Merriam-Webster's
Encyclopedia of Literature
