Dadaism and Surrealism: An Attack on Reason

Dada: No Meaning — Intentionally

Dadaism emerged in Zurich in 1916 — during the First World War. It was the reaction of artist-emigrants to the madness of war: if the “rational” West led to mass murder on an industrial scale — rationality is rejected. Dada is “anti-art”: an artistic gesture destroying the very concept of art.

Dadaist manifestos are written deliberately to be meaningless. Performances — cacophony and absurdity. Hugo Ball read “phonetic poetry”: “gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori...” — sounds without meaning. This is not madness — it is a program.

Marcel Duchamp is a key figure. “Fountain” (1917): an ordinary urinal, exhibited as art. The “ready-made”: an ordinary industrial object becomes a work of art through context. This is an attack on the concept of the “original work” and “authorial skill”. What makes something “art”? Only context? Only the institution (gallery, museum)?

Surrealism: The Unconscious as Source

Surrealism (1920s–30s) grew out of Dadaism, but created a positive program: art must express the unconscious, liberated from the censorship of reason. The source — Freud.

André Breton, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Joan Miró. “Automatic writing”: to write without censorship by consciousness — so the unconscious speaks directly. “Dream as reality” — surrealité (surréalité) = reality + dream.

Dalí is the most famous: “The Persistence of Memory” (melting clocks), the paranoid-critical method. Magritte is philosophical: “The Treachery of Images” (“This is not a pipe”) — an image is not the thing. “The Son of Man” — the face is hidden by an apple.

Question for reflection: Duchamp asked, what makes something “art”? Ask an analogous question for your field: what makes something “valuable” or “professional” in your domain? Is it objective or is it an “institutional” effect?