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Review: DADA at the National Gallery
Apr. 1st, 2006 11:12 pmFrom the National Gallery's website:
Overview: Dada, one of the crucially significant movements of the historical avant-garde, was born in the heart of Europe in the midst of World War I. In the wake of that brutal conflict, Dadaists raucously challenged tradition, and art-making was changed forever. The most comprehensive museum exhibition of Dada art ever mounted in the United States, Dada features painting, sculpture, photography, film, collage, and readymades emerging in six cities: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, and Paris. The exhibition presents many of the most influential figures in the history of modernism, as well as others less known, including Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber, Hans Richter, Hannah Höch, Raoul Hausmann, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp.
A brief silent film composed of documentary footage from World War I screens continuously at the entrance to the exhibition. With images of modern weaponry, gas masks, and brutalities of war, the film provides a historical context for the exhibition.
Before you can enter the exhibit to Dada, you pass a strange scene: sixteen shiny black pianos, two big drums, two xylophones, and a series of alarm bells arrayed in a half-circle. They're there for the performance of a ten minute segment of Ballet Mechanique, a piece composed for the film of the same name, but which was rarely played as the audio to the film, largely because it was twice as long as the movie was. The piece plays at one and four on weekdays, and at one on weekends, and is worth a listen. It's also wildly entertaining to watch the reaction of other people around you when the first siren goes off. The music is hard to describe, although "cacophany" probably works, but I admit to finding myself humming bits of it on the Metro on my way home. Very odd.
The setup of the exhibit was very well thought out. You enter into a darkened room showing newsreel clips from WWI playing silently in front of you. My interest in WWI stems from reading too much Sayers, and then branching out from there, plus a very good history teacher in my junior year of high school, but seeing these flickering images of unflinching violence - explosions, rows of legless men, children swaddled in grotesque gas masks - you find yourself quietly growing more horrified. Not enough people know anything about WWI, so the context is really valuable.
From there, the exhibit is broken down into cities, starting with Zurich, and progressing into Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, New York, and Paris. This progression through the various cities is also a progression through the evolution of Dada itself, and it provides a good backbone from which to suspend the exhibit. The exhibit design is particularly playful, as befits the subject - a spiral staircase that moves you from Zurich to Berlin has been decorated with pointing hands and Tristan Tzara's instructions on how to make a Dada poem. Berlin itself has been laid out to resemble the room in which the first Dada exhibit was held, complete with four green leather armchairs in the middle of the room, right under "Prussian Archangel." A photograph of the interior of MertzBau expands out into three dimensions, which the visitor can walk through. Quotes decorate parts of the wall, pithily expounding on the meaning of Dada itself (e.g. "Art needs an operation!) I also found the labels exceptionally well-written. They're clear, informative, and not so full of jargon that it turns off the average museum visitor.
A few side rooms play clips of Dada sound poems, and one room is devoted to playing several Dada movies. (Bemo was particularly interested in these, and if you have any doubts about where Monty Python got some of their aesthetics, well - I have a movie from 1929 to show you.) Sometimes the sounds are audible outside the little niches, and I admit to liking the bizarre sensation of looking at a work of art while behind you, somebody is going "gggnnfffff padadadadadapdpadada mooogle kerkundun" in very earnest tones.
The exhibit is very, very dense and exceedingly popular, which means that one visit may not be enough. I've been back four times, and I can honestly say that I've seen new things each time. I'll be purchasing the catalogue, as well.
For more information, you can go to the National Gallery's info page about the exhibit.
Overview: Dada, one of the crucially significant movements of the historical avant-garde, was born in the heart of Europe in the midst of World War I. In the wake of that brutal conflict, Dadaists raucously challenged tradition, and art-making was changed forever. The most comprehensive museum exhibition of Dada art ever mounted in the United States, Dada features painting, sculpture, photography, film, collage, and readymades emerging in six cities: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, and Paris. The exhibition presents many of the most influential figures in the history of modernism, as well as others less known, including Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber, Hans Richter, Hannah Höch, Raoul Hausmann, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp.
A brief silent film composed of documentary footage from World War I screens continuously at the entrance to the exhibition. With images of modern weaponry, gas masks, and brutalities of war, the film provides a historical context for the exhibition.
Before you can enter the exhibit to Dada, you pass a strange scene: sixteen shiny black pianos, two big drums, two xylophones, and a series of alarm bells arrayed in a half-circle. They're there for the performance of a ten minute segment of Ballet Mechanique, a piece composed for the film of the same name, but which was rarely played as the audio to the film, largely because it was twice as long as the movie was. The piece plays at one and four on weekdays, and at one on weekends, and is worth a listen. It's also wildly entertaining to watch the reaction of other people around you when the first siren goes off. The music is hard to describe, although "cacophany" probably works, but I admit to finding myself humming bits of it on the Metro on my way home. Very odd.
The setup of the exhibit was very well thought out. You enter into a darkened room showing newsreel clips from WWI playing silently in front of you. My interest in WWI stems from reading too much Sayers, and then branching out from there, plus a very good history teacher in my junior year of high school, but seeing these flickering images of unflinching violence - explosions, rows of legless men, children swaddled in grotesque gas masks - you find yourself quietly growing more horrified. Not enough people know anything about WWI, so the context is really valuable.
From there, the exhibit is broken down into cities, starting with Zurich, and progressing into Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, New York, and Paris. This progression through the various cities is also a progression through the evolution of Dada itself, and it provides a good backbone from which to suspend the exhibit. The exhibit design is particularly playful, as befits the subject - a spiral staircase that moves you from Zurich to Berlin has been decorated with pointing hands and Tristan Tzara's instructions on how to make a Dada poem. Berlin itself has been laid out to resemble the room in which the first Dada exhibit was held, complete with four green leather armchairs in the middle of the room, right under "Prussian Archangel." A photograph of the interior of MertzBau expands out into three dimensions, which the visitor can walk through. Quotes decorate parts of the wall, pithily expounding on the meaning of Dada itself (e.g. "Art needs an operation!) I also found the labels exceptionally well-written. They're clear, informative, and not so full of jargon that it turns off the average museum visitor.
A few side rooms play clips of Dada sound poems, and one room is devoted to playing several Dada movies. (Bemo was particularly interested in these, and if you have any doubts about where Monty Python got some of their aesthetics, well - I have a movie from 1929 to show you.) Sometimes the sounds are audible outside the little niches, and I admit to liking the bizarre sensation of looking at a work of art while behind you, somebody is going "gggnnfffff padadadadadapdpadada mooogle kerkundun" in very earnest tones.
The exhibit is very, very dense and exceedingly popular, which means that one visit may not be enough. I've been back four times, and I can honestly say that I've seen new things each time. I'll be purchasing the catalogue, as well.
For more information, you can go to the National Gallery's info page about the exhibit.