German Dada  

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In 1919, the Dada manifestoWhat is Dadaism and what does it want in Germany?” by the German Dadaists demanded the introduction of progressive unemployment through the comprehensive mechanization of every field of activity, for, "only by unemployment does it become possible for the individual to achieve certainty as to the truth of life and finally become accustomed to experience."

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The Dada groups in Germany were not as strongly anti-art as other groups. Their activity and art was more political and social, with corrosive manifestos and propaganda, biting satire, large public demonstrations and overt political activities. It has been suggested that this is at least partially due to Berlin's proximity to the front, and that for an opposite effect, New York's geographic distance from the war spawned its more theoretically-driven, less political nature.

In February 1918, Richard Huelsenbeck gave his first Dada speech in Berlin, and produced a Dada manifesto later in the year. Hannah Höch and George Grosz used Dada to express post-World War I communist sympathies. Grosz, together with John Heartfield, developed the technique of photomontage during this period. The artists published a series of short-lived political journals, and held the International Dada Fair in 1920.

The Berlin group saw much in-fighting; Kurt Schwitters and others were excluded from the group. Schwitters moved to Hanover where he developed his individual type of Dada, which he dubbed Merz.

The Berlin group published periodicals such as Club Dada, Der Dada, Everyman His Own Football , and Dada Almanach.

Cologne

In Cologne (Köln), Max Ernst, Johannes Theodor Baargeld and Arp launched a controversial Dada exhibition in 1920 which focused on nonsense and anti-bourgeois sentiments. Cologne's Early Spring Exhibition was set up in a pub, and required that participants walk past urinals while being read lewd poetry by a woman in a communion dress. The police closed the exhibition on grounds of obscenity, but it was re-opened when the charges were dropped.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "German Dada" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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