Page 36 - Studio International - January 1972

Dada, or the [An edited text of the talk given by Richard the beginning of the war. So a horse and a bird
Huelsenbeck at the ICA, London, on r October, really saved my life.
meaning of 1971, entitled 'Dada, or the meaning of chaos; Earlier, in 1912, (let's go back a little further),
Richard Huelsenbeck reports on his life'.] I met a person in Munich, a man who became a
chaos great influence in my life, called Hugo Ball. This
man was a revolutionary by instinct, not only
Richard Huelsenbeck politically but in every respect, and he was driven
by a kind of moral incentive to make justice so
to speak, he anticipated the conglomeration of
insane events, which then in 1912 he thought
must lead to a catastrophe, and we founded
together a magazine called The Revolution. This
So here is something that I have often been was a famous year (1912) in German literature.
asked because Dada has been mixed up with an A man by the name of Panitzer wrote a book
art movement, though it has nothing to present called The Council of Love and he was imprisoned,
as an art movement if you think of Cubism, of which was the first time in Germany that a
Impressionism or whatever, these are all literary man was imprisoned because he wrote
problems of form, of colour, of something that a book which didn't please the govern ment.
is shown or devised or has the aim of being a So we wrote about all that in this magazine.
work of art; now this we didn't have at all. We We were all in Munich but I, of course, I
had practically nothing except what we were. mean look at me, I figured as a correspondent in
This tremendous spontaneity of ours, which did Paris —I had never seen Paris then. I wrote a
not get stuck in any particular direction, such as lot about Paris without ever having seen it and
Breton did later on with his surrealism. That they all swallowed it and found it very wonderful,
was the meaning of Dada at that time. so I must have had some kind of intuition then.
I made it very clear to the gentlemen who were So this then was the time of the Blue Rider in
good enough to invite me here to speak for you Munich—we got acquainted with Marc, Macke,
about Dada that this is not a scientific affair, so Kandinsky and other great painters. Kandinsky,
I'm used to speak freely—I'm not reading as a at this time, was writing a book about the spirit
scientific lecture and you are invited to interrupt in art. So we met him and Ball, this friend that I
me at any time if you want to. I would like you was talking about, who was an assistant at the
to be a little bit lively such as we were. Now I theatre—he wanted to become a director. There
am approaching the last third of my life and I'm was a famous actress Eda Roland and he was
not as lively as I was in 1916 in Zurich at the assistant at her theatre. This was the time of
Spiegelgasse, then I was very lively—I could Expressionism, which later finally became the
jump over tables and chairs, beat people up and focal point of our hatred when we founded
was beaten up of course too, but there's a little Dada. We identified Expressionism with what
bit of this spirit still left in me. The Spiegel- I may call the German soul, what the Germans
gasse in Zurich had many famous persons there. call innerlichkeit, to live within, to have all the
Lenin lived there, the Cabaret Voltaire was good things within, without being too much
there, I think Bakunin was there for a time. interested in what is happening on the outside.
Zurich at that time was a place where all the That's what we really reproached them with,
people came who were against the First World that they never looked to the outside to prevent
War. catastrophes but they were always busy about
Now you can imagine that intelligent young their heart, their soul, their ideas. Ball wrote an
people being hit by the outbreak of war, which article against religion and the magazine was
we all believed at this time was due to the banned and we just escaped imprisonment. I
German activity, especially due to the fact that then went to Berlin and began to be interested
there was some kind of princely thing which in medicine. I studied a little bit and most of
didn't work out—in our opinion there was the time sat in these coffee houses for intel-
absolutely no reason for that to start a war. Of lectuals, but at times I went to the University
course I was a
and listened half-heartedly to what they had to
soldier—but there was a
doctor who had written me a letter about the state say, but that changed, as I will tell you.
of my mind which he said I should show to the Now this was 1912, the war broke out and we
doctor who was going to induct me into the did the best we could to protest against the war.
army. Now when I came there I gave the doctor We just escaped imprisonment several times.
the letter not knowing what was in it and he We organised an evening for the poets fallen in
took out the letter and said 'Did you write that ?' the war, and I spoke in Berlin, while Germany
I said 'What ?"Do you write poetry ?' I said was at war with France, about Charles Péguy,
`Yes I write poetry.' He said 'Did you write a French poet of great quality. And we arranged
this ?' I said 'What does it say ?"You write lines an evening directed against Expressionism, half
like "a horse makes himself comfortable in a for it and half against. This was an evening
bird's nest," do you write that ?' I said 'Yes, I where Alfred Kerr, a very famous critic at this
wrote that.' Then he said 'You better go home.' time in Berlin, said that Expressionism is when
So I went home and that probably spared my Huelsenbeck takes a Monet out of the cashier's
life because all the young German soldiers were bag and runs away, which of course was a lie:
then killed in Belgium and in France already in I never took anything. But that's what he said.
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