Emerging amid the brutality of World War I, the revolutionary Dada
movement took disgust with the establishment as its starting point. From
1916 until the mid-1920s, artists in Zurich, Cologne, Hanover, Paris,
and New York launched a radical assault on the politics, social values,
and cultural conformity which they regarded as complicit in the
devastating conflict.
Dada artists shared no distinct style but rather a common wish to upturn
societal structures as much as artistic standards and to replace logic
and reason with the absurd, chaotic, and unpredictable. Their practice
encompassed experimental theater, games, guttural sound-making, collage,
photomontage, chance-based procedures, and the "readymade," most
notoriously Marcel Duchamp's urinal, Fountain (1917). Throughout, the
Dadaists considered the visual appearance of their work secondary to the
ideas and critiques it expressed. In this sense, Dada may be seen as a
fundamental precursor to conceptual art.
With a selection of key works from some of the most famous proponents of
Dada such as Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Höch, Kurt
Schwitters, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray, this book introduces this
urgent, subversive, and determined 20th-century movement and its lasting
influence on modern art.
About the series
Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the
best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's
Basic Art History series features:
approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
a detailed, illustrated introduction
a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on
a two-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying
interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist
