DADAIST SUBJECTIVITY and the POLITICS of INDIFFERENCE on Some Contrasts and Correspondences Between Dada in Zürich and Berlin 1

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DADAIST SUBJECTIVITY AND THE POLITICS OF INDIFFERENCE On some contrasts and correspondences between Dada in Zürich and Berlin 1

Hubert van den Berg

1. Dada is rarely described as one single movement – for a simple reason: Dada was anything but a homogeneous formation. As a con- sequence, Dada is generally portrayed as a set of individual branches with characteristics and particularities of their own. In this context Dada in Berlin, one of the major Dada branches, is often singled out for its outspoken political character, especially in contrast with Dada in Zürich, in which politics is supposed to have been a rather irrele- vant factor, even though Dada as such is generally attributed a certain political dimension, since Dada can be regarded in some respects as a reaction to World War I (cf. Fiedler 1989). The implicit, concealed political character of Dada in Zü rich, where Dada was founded in 1916 in the middle of the war, is supposed to have assumed a more definite and explicitly political shape in Berlin. Indeed, several of the Berlin Dadaists were involved in contemporary politics, e.g. George 30 Hubert van den Berg

Grosz, John Heartfield, Wieland Herzfelde and Franz Jung became members of the newly founded Communist Party right from the start in January 1919. Much of the work and activities of the Berlin Dadaists possesses a poignant political edge. A clear example are the political graphics by George Grosz, which denounced the ruling classes as well as the excrescences of capitalism and militarism, and at the same time univocally sided with the Spartakusbund and the Communist Party in the civil war-like situation after the collapse of the German Empire at the end of the World War (cf. Schuster 1995). Contemporary political developments figure prominently too in collages and photomontages by Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Hö ch, John Heartfield and – again – George Grosz (cf. Dech 1989, Züchner 1994, Pachnicke/Honnef 1991). Also unmistakenly political and partisan was a series of placards on the walls of the major Dada exhibition Erste Internationale Dada-Messe in the summer of 1920, with texts like: “DADA ist die willentliche Zerstörung der bürgerlichen Begriffswelt” , “ DADA steht auf Seiten des revo- lutionären Proletariats”, “DADA ist politisch” (cf. Höch 1989: 677- 9). And political views and reflections were not only presented in the visual work of the Dadaists, but also in Dadaist literary expressions. Likewise satires by Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck and Walter Mehring possess an obvious political character. This seems especially true for manifestoes, like Dadaisten gegen Weimar and Was ist der Dadaismus und was will er in Deutschland? , in which a Dadaist “revolutionary council” forwarded its ludicrous demands and objectives (cf. Bergius/ Riha 1979). Finally, the exploits of the Oberdada Johannes Baader can be mentioned, who presented himself as the new president of the globe and as such in particular as the Dadaist alternative for the newly founded Republic of Weimar (cf. Baader 1977). There can be no doubt that politics played an important role in the ventures of the Berlin Dadaists. When, however, the difference between Dada in Berlin and Dada elsewhere, especially in Zü rich, is described as a contrast between political and unpolitical Dadaism, this attempt to characterize the particularity of Dada in Berlin is anything but adequate. On the contrary, among the Zürich Dadaists am-