A Journey Through The Dada Movement
- Giovanni Peresson
- Dec 8, 2023
- 4 min read
By Giovanni Peresson 08/12/2023
Dadaism was a movement we learned about during a class one week and the story of rebellion within the world of art and the fact there where actual acts of violence amongst artists and the destruction of artworks was fascinating. This is type of story you would hear about a country over throwing their regime , not a bunch of European artists from the world war 1 period. Today I aim to further explore the movement and look into various stories and works of different dada artist such as marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dali which I have been waiting for the perfect excuse to write about.
I'm going to give a brief history of the movement and we are going to travel back in time to 1916 during the height of the First World War where revolutions took place across the globe such as the easter rising in Dublin and Russian Revolution of 1917. Meanwhile in the city of Zurich in neutral Switzerland a different type of revolution was brewing. Dadaism, this anti-establishment art movement aimed to challenge traditional art as well as mainstream distribution. This was not a long lasting period in art history but was the foundation for what modern art is today with artists such as Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp and Hans Arp.
Often these artists would create intentionally absurd and nonsensical pieces simply to annoy mainstream artists and their traditional values. Politics and social commentary where often incorporated into their works. Their aim was the provocation of the upper and middle classes. Their influence on surrealism was profound, A lot of dada artists later played key roles in the Avent-Garde movement. Their legacy was the exploration of unconventional forms and ideas within contemporary art.
In 1922 the movement came to its short-lived end. Not only where there traditional artforms, film played a significant role as it was beginning to become more accessible by more people. A significant filmmaker during this era was Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp had a fascination with rotation, we see this quite constantly in his such as "The bicycle" and his short film Anémic cinéma, (1926), M. Duchamp The film consists of wax discs spinning with words in French written on them as well as spiral patterns drawn on creating an optical illusion much like look at a record player from a birds eye view. Duchamp began as a rather successful painter in Paris but shortly later came dadaism and he dropped the paint brush and began to focus on objects themselves as pieces of art which is really the core of the above.
Dada films employed experimental techniques throughout and often would include montage, collage and found footage. They used non-narrative storytelling as a tool to disrupt the conventions and create an almost chaotic viewing experience. They challenged concept of what film should be which aligns which the dada view of rejecting the established norms.
The other experimental filmmaker I would like to focus on this week is of course, Salvador Dali. Two experimental films he made where Un Chien Andalou, (1929) and l'Age d'Or, (1930). The film Un Chien Andalou although it being an experimental film which is a very niche genre has one of the most iconic shots in historical cinema, the razor blade up to the woman's eye then it cuts to a thin cloud passing moon symbolising the cutting of the eye. Although this film is more surrealist its foundation stems from dadaism
Dada artists would often collaborate with one another creating all different forms of art which is something I haven't mentioned in my previous blog on collaboration. They embraced this which we can see in the post dada feature film "dreams that money can buy" (1947)by Hans Richter, Josh White, Man Ray, Hans Rehfisch and Marcel Duchamp which is about a man who can create and sell dreams to other people. In this film we see the aspects from all the mentioned filmmakers including the Rotating discs which we saw in Anemic Cinema.
Dali was responsible for the evident dreamlike surrealist qualities which is a trend we regularly see throughout his other works. He uses images such as melting clocks and distorted figures in his paintings which he has managed to translate onto screen. This is a highly influential film in the world of cinema opening up the realm of surrealism and its popularity influenced more filmmakers to create these types of films
In my personal opinion this film felt like it was trying to cling on the past, an art form which essentially was left behind 25 years in the past and at the same it strayed from the true nature of dadaism. They created a film that in my opinion, felt "normal" it had a narrative and if you search for it on the internet you can see a synopsis which goes against the nature of dadaism. My Reflection of dadaism that there is a reason why there are different periods in art, it gets old and people want something new. Although aspects of it can be used to create a richer experience this film has not and should be used as constructed criticism on the subject.
Bibliography
Stanley Kirshner-Breen, (August 3rd 2017), "Dadasim and the rejection of reason", Medium, available at:
accessed 05/12/23
"Dada", The Art Story, available at: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/dada/, accessed 05/12/23
Paul Trachtman, (May 2006), "A brief history of dada", Smithsonian magazine, available at:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dada-115169154/ , accessed 05/12/23
"Marcel Duchamp and the readymade", MoMA, available at:
https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/dada/marcel-duchamp-and-the-readymade#:~:text=In%20the%20years%20immediately%20preceding,presenting%20objects%20themselves%20as%20art, accessed 06/12/23
Anémic cinéma, (1926), M. Duchamp
Annette Michelson, "Anemic Cinema, Reflections on an emblematic work", Artforum, available at:
accessed 06/12/23
Un Chien Andalou, (1929), Luis Buneuel, Salvador Dali
l'Age d'Or, (1930), Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dalo
Michael Koller, (Febuary 2001), "Un Chien Andlou", Sense of Cinema, available at:
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/cteq/chien/ accessed 07/12/23
Dreams that money can buy, (1947), H. Richter
This Blog has been written for educational purposes as part of CIN506 Experimental Film Week 10 Blog.
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