Page 45 - Studio International - April 1971

me— Jefim Golyscheff.4 He was a musician and In order to maintain its position. I had most prudent.
painter and with him I organized, in decided to organize with Grosz and Heartfield In the end there were only fines; a pitiful
Huelsenbeck's absence, the first Dada exhibition the first 'Great International Dada Fair' in thing happened: the principal witness for the
in Berlin. Berlin in the summer of 192o. defence, a director of the Dresden Museum,
On this occasion he made the first of his At this final cauterization could be seen Paul Schmidt, had not much difficulty
assemblages of unusual materials which photomontages, assemblages and posters which convincing the judge that all the dadaist horrors
opposed the 'high art' of the Expressionists far surpassed all that one could have seen up to were only juvenile tricks and easily forgiven
which Der Sturm offered to an initiated public. that time. practical jokes.
And for the soirée which marked the end of this All the daring things possible in material, Dada had missed its mark; Dada the
exhibition Golyscheff had composed an atonal conception and invention—not yet surpassed by formidable Trojan horse full of dangers was no
symphony in three parts called 'the Anti- the Neo-Dadaists and Pop Artists of today— more than an old thing tilting at windmills, the
Symphony' (the Circular Guillotine), performed were demonstrated there. But the public was cool sad Rosinante that one was ashamed of riding or
by a young girl dressed in white. The contrast towards us; people no longer wanted to see Dada. revealing.
between this apparition and the assault of the The officers of the Lüttwitz Corps who visited Dada was dead, without glory or funereal
strange sounds was so great that the public the Fair lodged complaints for slander in the pomp.
remained quiet. name of the German army, but the action was Simply dead.
Some months later I produced my manifesto brought only against Baader (as Ober-Dada), The Dadaists again found themselves in
Was ist der Dadaismus und was will er in Grosz and Heartfield, and Schlichter6, the private life.
Deutschland ?5 An enormous mockery of all creator of the German officer with a pig's face. As for me, I declared myself Anti-Dada and
political and spiritual tendencies; for example: They left me alone because, being Czechoslovak, PREsentist, and with Schwitters resumed the
free daily meals for all intellectuals; the I was a member of a foreign state. That was struggle on another scheme.' q
education of the proletariat by the Circus; the
creation of a sexual centre and the application of
This article originally appeared as 'Dada s'émeut, se
Dadaist laws as the state religion. My manifesto
meut et meurt a Berlin' in Phases 11, Paris, 1967. This
was reprinted in most German dailies. A news- first English version is published with the permission
sheet produced by the American occupation of Mr Hausmann, who approved the translation
and kindly provided further information on
attributed to this manifesto the title 'Artistic
Berlin Dada helpful in the preparation of the
Bolshevism' and from that moment Dada was introduction and notes. (J.E.)
never regarded as anything but 'red'. Golyscheff 1 The programme for this soirée, at the Saal der
neuen Sezession in Berlin, included: Richard
signed his manifesto with Huelsenbeck and
Huelsenbeck, 'Der Dadaismus im Leben und in der
myself. It was his last Dadaist act. Kunst'; Else Hadwiger, 'Futuristische und
In 1919 I had created my sculpture, dadaistische verse' (all in fact by Italians); George
Grosz, Sincopations, eigene verse'; Raoul Hausmann,
Mechanical Head, which I called 'The Spirit of
`Das neue Material in der Malerei'.
our Times', to demonstrate that the conscience 2 Johannes Baader (1876-1955) met Hausmann in
of man was nothing but a set of accessories which 1905 and became his chief ally in Dada events. His
religious obsessions were long-standing: in 1899 he
one glued on, and which is in reality nothing but
had declared himself Christ's successor in his
a hairdresser's mannequin well arranged with `Fourteen letters of Christ'. His principal Dadaist-
nice locks of hair. religious work is lost: the Bucher zuhanden des
I had an extensive knowledge of the function Oberdada, a two-volume collage diary for 1919-1920
which Baader claimed was greater than the bible, and
of the bodily organism and in 192o formulated which he once offered for sale for S35,000 to Ben
my ideas on this subject in my text Ruckkehr Hecht, the German war correspondent of the Chicago
Daily News.
zur Gegenstandlichkeit in der Kunst' published
3 An account of one such occurrence—the public
in Dada Almanach. reading of works by Gottfried Keller in 1918—appears
The activity of Dada was a gigantic in Hausmann's Courrier Dada (Paris, 1958), the most
accessible introduction to his philosophy.
confinement, but people didn't dare to look at a
4 Jefim Golyscheff (b. 1897) was a Russian painter and
delivery; that was too crude. composer who had carried out serial experiments
The political attitude of some members since the age of 17. He invented the `Seriephonie'
wherein each note takes the same length and value as
could not conceal the fact that the Berlin Club
that preceding it, painted geometric canvases, and
Dada fell short of its aims, and this internal exhibited mushroom-shaped architecture with the
deficiency caused its end. Novembergruppe.
5 This manifesto, 'What is Dadaism and what does it
Dada was obliged to be first of all an anti-
want in Germany' (sometimes called the Manifest des
cultural activity. The Anti-Art removed from Dadaistischen Revolutionären Zentralrates), reveals the
objects and materials their utilitarian characters important differences between Hausmann and
Huelsenbeck. As Hausmann writes, his intention was
as well as their concrete private meaning; it
strictly satirical; but Huelsenbeck's comments on this
overturned plastic values and rendered them work (in his En Avant Dada, 1920) show that he took
semi-abstract. its political ambitions seriously.
6 Rudolf Schlichter (189o-1955). His brother kept a
However, this procedure was only understood
restaurant where the Dadaists met. The dummy of the
partially by some Dadaists who were not able to German officer Hausmann mentions was especially
stand outside or progress beyond their political provocative since it carried the slogan, 'Hanged by
the Revolution'.
intentions. 7 Hausmann had earlier unsuccessfully defended
There is to be found all the guilt of the Schwitters's application to join Club Dada, and
Dadaists, caused by their irresponsibility. introduced Schwitters to phonetic poetry on their
Anti-Dada tour to Prague in 1921. `Presentism' refers
Dada was ready to retire, but it unconsciously
to Hausmann's article Presentismus' in De Stijl,
concealed itself until it was ready to die. February 1921, indicative of his new interest in what
Without doubt, Dada was never the digestive has been called 'the constructive alternative' : the
increasing preoccupation with abstract idioms by
aperitif that people wished to make of it. `formal' Dadaists (like Richter, Eggeling, Schwitters,
Dada owed it to itself to remain indigestible. Hausmann) in the period 1920-23.
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