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Addressing the Viewer: the Use of Text in the First International Dada Fair

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Addressing the Viewer: the Use of Text in the First International Dada Fair Addressing the Viewer: The Use of Text in the First International Dada Fair Megan Kosinski Honors Thesis School of Art + Art History April 6, 2012 Kosinski 2 Focused on the group carefully posed in the center of the image, the most popular photograph (Figure 1) of the First International Dada Fair captured members of Club Dada viewing their own creations. Hannah Höch, seated on the left bench, looks out just beyond the camera, modeling the most fashionable Bubikopf hair style and modern dress. Directly in front of her, yet not in line with her gaze, hangs Otto Dix’s 45% Ablebodied (also known as War Cripples), topped with two printed posters, one which reads “Take / DADA seriously, / it’s worth it!”1 Behind her, Dr. Otto Burchard, Raoul Hausmann, and Johannes Baader stand together in front of Grosz’s Victim of Society (Remember Uncle August, the Unhappy Inventor) in a seemingly intense conversation with one another. Like Höch, these three gentlemen showcase modern men’s Weimar fashions. In the doorway, surrounded by five printed posters, one clearly stating “Dabblers / rise yourselves / against art!” stand Mr. and Mrs. Wieland Herzfelde who both look at the works displayed on the wall.2 While Mr. Herzfelde wears a Figure 1 Installation view of the First International Dada Fair look of interest, Mrs. Herzfelde appears confused and (Altshulter, “DADA ist politisch,” 100.) bewildered at the art presented to her. The back wall, not viewed by any of the figures in the picture, displays Grosz’s large Germany, a Winter’s Tale, buttressed underneath with a poster stating “DADA is/ political”.3 Otto Schmalhausen sits on a chair looking off the right edge of the photograph, his gaze complemented by George Grosz and John Heartfield, and looks towards Grosz and Heartfield’s The Philistine Heartfield Gone Wild (Electo-Mechanical Tatlin Plastic). 1 “Nehmen Sie / DADA ernst, / es lohnt sich!” 2 “Dilettanten / erhebt Euch /gegen die Kunst!” 3 “DADA ist / politisch.” Kosinski 3 Hovering ominously over the main seating area and most of the group is Heartfield’s Prussian Archangel, complete with instructions via text dictating how the piece should be viewed.4 Complementing this photograph is the image (Figure ) showing Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Höch discussing the unknown document held in Hausmann’s hands. While this view shows two Figure 2 major Dada works, Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Installation view of the First International Dada Fair, 1920 Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany and Hausmann’s (Altshulter, “DADA ist politisch,” 103.) Tatlin at Home, the most overwhelming aspect of this corner is the amount of text, both in the works themselves and in additional posters. Flanking the top and bottom edges of Tatlin at Home are two posters, the top stating “ “I can live without eating or drinking, but not without DADA,” “I can’t Figure 3 Installation view of the First International Dada Fair, either,” “Neither can I.” ” and the bottom stating 1920 (Altshulter, “DADA ist politisch,” 102.) “Art is dead/ Long life the new/ machine art of / TATLIN”5 Finally, the third publicity photograph rounds out the series (Figure ). This image lacks any human presence, but rather shows another area of the exhibition. Presented directly for the camera is the first poster/photograph combination, showing a profile figure combined with text and stating “Dada/ is the/ willful subversion” (top) and “of the/ civil world perception/ DADA/ 4 Bruce Altshuler, “DADA ist politisch The First International Dada Fair Berlin, June 30- August 25, 1920,” in The Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New Art in the 20th Century (New York: Abrams, 1994), 100. 5 Translation taken from Matthew Biro, The DADA Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 116. Kosinski 4 rises on/ the side of the revolution/ of the proletariats!”6 Appropriately, there is a table directly below the poster with other Dada publications, available for sale to the exhibition’s viewers.7 Shown in conjunction with dolls by Hannah Höch is the front page of the Dada publication Neue Jugend, just out readable distance in its position over a blocked doorway.8 A number of additional posters flood the available space, including two following the photograph flanked with text layout. Yet, these other two images address the viewer more directly, one that involved a figured yelling text though his cupped hands and the other with barred teeth spewing text from his mouth. The text translates, from top to bottom: “Open finally/ Your Mind!”9 “Below the art”10 “Make him free/ for the/ Claims of the time!”11 Forever recorded in these posed publicity photographs, the First International Dada Fair created an environment in which the viewer was immersed, completely surrounded by objects and text combined, emotionally and physically impacting the viewer. 12 The range of materials— often appropriated—throughout the exhibition joined in the creation of such works as sculptures, paintings, montages, and posters to ultimately constitute a sort of political advertising campaign for the Berlin Dada group. Set in a gallery space owned by the above mentioned Dr. Otto Burchard, also named Finazdada due to his financial contributions to this culmination of the Berlin Dada movement, the First Dada International ran from June 30 until August 25, 1920.13 Consisting of two rooms with a connecting hallway, the Dadaists displayed around 200 works, 6 “DADA/ ist die/ willentliche Zersetzung” “der/ bürgerlichen Begriffswelt/ DADA/ steht auf/ Seiten des revolutionären/ Proletariats!” 7 One such publication for sale was the Grosz set of lithographs entitles Gott mit uns (God with Us). Wieland Herzfelde, “Introduction to the First International Dada Fair,” trans. and intro. by Brigid Doherty, October 105 (Summer 2003): 93. 8 Altshuler, “DADA ist politisch,” 102. 9 “Sperren Sie endlich/ Ihren Kopf auf!” 10 “Nieder die Kunst” 11 “Machen Sie ihn frei/ für die/ Forderungen der Zeit!” 12 Doherty, “Introduction to the First International Dada Fair,” 93. 13 Altshuler, “DADA ist politisch,” 103. Kosinski 5 with 174 of them being named officially in the corresponding catalogue available for sale. Of the 27 exhibitors, also named in the catalogue, a majority were German, giving the name “First International Dada Fair” somewhat of a false nomenclature.14 While not all of the pieces exhibited made use of text in some fashion, text ultimately ruled the exhibition due to its pervasive nature throughout, especially in the numerous posters printed with various Dada sayings. Essentially this Fair acted as the premature conclusion of the Berlin Dada movement. While a visual assault was maintained throughout the gallery space through the numerous Dada works, one specific aspect that clearly was meant to affect the viewer was the extreme use of text throughout the exhibition. This text accomplished two purposes. First was through the actual, often highly political, statements expressed in the original German. The second occurs in its orientation throughout the exhibition, whether in the works themselves or the posters surrounding the works. This use of text directly affected the viewer’s relationship to the exhibition, to the pieces within the exhibition, and to the Dada movement itself. The text gave Dada authority over the viewer and allowed the Dadaist to give commands visually though an influx of information, inducing traumatic effects upon the viewer.15 Overall, the text was a way for the Dadaists to directly confront the audience and attempt to control the viewer’s experience throughout the space. This direct form of address forced a profound transformation of the viewer, necessitating an adaptation where the viewer would have to internalize not only the visual images in the work but also the text with all of its specific connotations concurrently. By looking at the Fair itself, along with specific works included in the Fair, one can begin to imagine how a 14 Altshuler, “DADA ist politisch,” 110. 15 Brigid Doherty, “’See: We Are All Neurasthenics!’ or, The Trauma of Dada Montage,” Critical Inquiry 24 (1997): 125. Kosinski 6 viewer of the exhibition would have been dramatically affected by the extensive amount of textual information included throughout. This change in the viewer, who now must accommodate multiple methods of viewing simultaneously, can be related to the more recently defined Dada cyborg. As a term not known during the 1920s, it can only retrospectively be applied to the change in viewer as experienced in the exhibition. As noted recently by Matthew Biro, “The cyborg was thus used by the Dadaists to constitute a new type of spectator: an interpellated subject position produced by their heterogeneous artworks that investigated connections between transforming perception under the conditions of mass-reproduction and developing new forms of hybrid identity.”16 The viewers of this exhibition participated as actors in the Fair, which could be considered a space created from montage due to the variety of materials presented within it, which turned the viewers into cyborgs themselves. Overall, the use of text in Dada works could be viewed to create another manifestation of the Dada cyborg not only in the piece itself, but in how the viewer processes and interprets the piece as a cyborg.17 While Dada had been active in a number of cities prior to reaching Berlin, it maintained, at first, a non-political approach outside of Germany. Only when reaching Berlin and the artists living
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