Dada is a life style, not art

Dada Berlin and Paris

Huelsenbeck went in 1918 to Berlin, the capital of the loser of World War One. At the time it was a complete anarchistic city, where extreme wealthy merchants dined in expensive restaurants while starving war invalids begged on the sidewalk.

Huelsenbeck writes on this period in his autobiography En Avant Dada: "In Zurich the international profiteers sat in the restaurants with well-filled wallets and towy cheeks, ate with their knives and smacked their lips in a merry hurrah for the countries that were bashing each other's skulls in. Berlin was the city of tightened stomachers, of mounting, thundering hunger, where hidden rage was transformed into a boundless money lust, and men's minds were concentrating more and more on questions of naked existence".

It is not surprising that dada in Berlin developes itself to a strongly political tainted movement. Al the ludicrous actions were harsh and aggressive; they provoked evenly harsh and aggressive reactions from the Berlin police and the German army and marines.

When Tzara went to Paris in 1920 on the invitation of the future pope of surrealism André Breton the atmosphere there was completely the opposite. In the triumphant passion that suites a winner Paris greeted dada with great enthusiasm. The soirees the dadaists held attracted crowds of thousands. Dada became the darling of the public.

Zaal Rosehaghe
Dada soirée
Dada Holland
Life = art
Dada stands for diversity
History of dada
Dada Zurich
Dada Berlin and Paris
The end of dada
Heritage of dada
The dadaist

Updated 3 april 2001; Comments to Martin Woestenburg.

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