The Dada show is probably one of the most influential and timely museum show (towards today’s political and social issues) that you will see in any museum anytime soon. I include the Whitney in this, especially the Whitney.
Let’s start with some quick reason’s why I think this is so important to today.
• Dada was based in six cities in 4 countries and 2 continents – most art movements are usually based in one or two cities
• Dada attacked the traditions of art history, but became part of it as well
• Dada embraced female as well as male artists (as well as transgendered alter egos)
• Dada used multiple medias; magazines, journals, sound poetry, dance, movies, performance, events (happenings!), traditional art forms as well as a serious investment in collage and photography
• Dada happened in real time not 18 to 36 months after the fact
To see how this has changed art, let’s fast forward to today. Photography has become an accepted medium, performance and video are now vanguard forms, collage is universal to the point where we now learn it in elementary school, movie making is in a boom period with video cameras that are now commonplace and, Street art is on the rise and beginning to become much more serious in it’s subject matter. Art has now become a vehicle to comment on our culture, sexuality, politics and whatever else we may think of.
Most impportantly, for artists, the most important thing that Dada did was to forever change what we view as art. Art would never again be “just something pretty”.
Post Note: I’ve tried not to make this a go see this show because of all the famous work that’s presented type of review. Please understand though, if your looking for the hits of the era, they are all there. To me, the validity and resonance of this show is the profound change it brought to artists ability to communicate both visual and intellectual ideas.
Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris is at the National Gallery through May 14th.