The Written Word

Although the Dadaists were not the first to direct their movement through a manifesto, they approached the type of political output of text as a means of self-reflection of the movement.  By creating these manifestos that stated what they as artists were about it left no room for extreme criticism.  Rather, they created a whole new platform for the art critics to respond to the pieces and exhibitions. Unlike the other art manifestos that were written in avant-garde movements, the Dada artists wrote multiple versions.  Different artists composed their own version of the manifesto, and others wrote multiple forms. 

Along with the manifestos, came journals.  These journals were especially prominent in the Dada movement.  The beginnings of mass communication were being unleashed and artists took this new format as an opportunity to showcase different techniques.   Within these journals, different manifestos were published, presenting themselves to the reader. 

Dada journals were the first of its kind to utilize the platform for the source of main interaction.  Throughout Europe different journals were published, giving way to international exchange of the movement.  Journals came out of the Netherlands, produced by Theo van Doesburg, and in Yugoslavia, Dragan Aleksić produced the Yugo-Dada magazine. In the main centers where Dadaism was formulated, like Paris, New York, and Zurich, you see the same production as well.  Although they were separately located, the Dada artists communicated extensively, sharing ideas, art, and formats.

The journals were not simply like a magazine seen today, but they were a new technique of art that was carefully planned out and structured.  From the front cover to the last page they were carefully composed.  The thought that went in to each edition did not mean that they were simple for the reader to understand though.  The new use of typography made the page more complex, where the reader may be turning the page around and around just to read every word written on it.  The words were also meant to be nonsensical, and disorderly on the page. 

The Blind Man, a journal set up by Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Beatrice Wood, was set up precisely to commentate on the Independents Artists Exhibition of 1917.  In the first edition the creators made a call for responses to the exhibition pieces by writing:

Write about the Indeps, or about any special work in the Exhibition.


A dramatic story of less than one hundred words.


A comic story of less than one hundred words.


A dream story of less than one hundred words.


A quatrain, or a limerick

A song (words and music)

-Roché

By putting this call in the journal, he takes away the art critic’s job, similar to the manifestos doing. Choosing two different options from above I responded to the call, not focusing on the Exhibition, but rather two pieces from the Dada artists that spoke to me. 

A dream story:

Bicycle Wheel – Marcel Duchamp

Spinning, staring, spinning, staring

Lost in the lines

The cold metals lines

Through them light shines

Staring, Spinning, Staring

The shining light comes faster, closer, faster

It pulls you in.  Taking you over

The light consumes

Coldness covers as the spinning lines are overtaken

Thoughts spill around you

The words that travel through the mind

The light pushes through you

Cold, bright light fills your mind

But

It falls back

The light recedes

Screaming for it to come back

But the thoughts return

The spinning stops

The entrancement is off

Staring, Staring, Staring

A limerick:

Hugo Ball - Karawane

To create those words with just a sound

Corresponding to the head smashed in to the ground

Critically in relation to children’s screaming cry

Take the face and shove it straight in to pie

To stop the constant overpowering pound

It is a natural action to automatically interpret art and place it on the subjective sphere of aesthetic pleasure.  In the process of responding to the call of The Blind Man no. 1, that passed and I was more playfully interactive with the pieces.  A moment of freedom.