This rich, in-depth exploration of Dada’s roots in East-Central Europe is a vital addition to existing research on Dada and the avant-garde. Through deeply researched case studies and employing novel theoretical approaches, the volume rewrites the history of Dada as a story of cultural and political hybridity, border-crossings, transitions, and transgressions, across political, class and gender lines. Dismantling prevailing notions of Dada as a “Western” movement, the contributors to this volume present East-Central Europe as the locus of Dada activity and techniques. The articles explore how artists from the region pre-figured Dada as well as actively “cannibalized”, that is, reabsorbed and further hybridized, a range of avant-garde techniques, thus challenging “Western” cultural hegemony.

This book deals with the early intellectual reception of the cinema and the manner in which art theorists, philosophers, cultural theorists, and especially artists of the first decades of the twentieth century responded to its advent. While the idea persists that early writers on film were troubled by the cinema’s lowly form, this work proposes that there was another, largely unrecognized, strain in the reception of it. Far from anxious about film’s provenance in popular entertainment, some writers and artists proclaimed that the cinema was the most important art for the moderns, as it exemplified the vibrancy of contemporary life. This view of the cinema was especially common among those whose commitments were to advanced artistic practices. Their notions about how to recast the art media (or the forms forged from those media’s materials) and the urgency of doing so formed the principal part of the conceptual core of the artistic programs advanced by the vanguard art movements of the first half of the twentieth century. This book, a companion to the author’s previous, Harmony & Dissent, examines the Dada and Surrealist movements as responses to the advent of the cinema.

This volume focuses on the unstudied geographic margins of Dada, delving into the roots of Dada in Israel, Romania, Poland, and North America. Contributors consider some of the practices and experiments that were conceived a century ago, surfaced in art throughout the twentieth century, and are still relevant today. Unearthing its Israeli origins, examining Dadaist expressions in Poland, and shedding light on overlooked facets of Dadaist art in Romania and North America, the authors cast a spotlight on the less-explored geographical peripheries of Dada. The book is organized around four thematic trajectories—space, language, materiality, and reception—which are dissected through the lens of micro-histories. Recognizing the continuing validity of questions raised by Dadaist artists, this volume argues that Dada persists as an ongoing endeavor—a continual reexamination of the fundamental tenets of art and its ever-evolving potential manifestations. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, modernism, and history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Exhibition catalog for the Dada Centennial show with an international survey of contemporary collage and assemblage art with over 300 works shown.

Dada began on February 5, 1916, when Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, and others launched the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Cabaret Voltaire would eventually become the stuff of legend, joined by the short-lived but no less significant Gallery Dada. Even as Dada spread throughout Europe and the world, its heart was always in Zurich. This book honors the centennial of Dada by telling for the first time the full story of its genesis and the role played by Zurich and its vibrant community of artists in its creation and flourishing. It sets the early years of Dada firmly in the city's historical and cultural context and reveals the intellectual and social background that were crucial to the fermenting artistic ideas that culminated in Dada. It goes on to trace the explosion of Dada into a worldwide phenomenon that took in such artists and intellectuals as Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray. Richly illustrated, this book will stand as the definitive account of the origins of Dada and its little-considered ties to one particular, spectacular city.

Marcel Duchamp is today considered one of the most significant 20th century artists worldwide. His far-reaching influence is visible within a variety of areas of creative production and critical inquiry, extending far beyond the world of art. Duchamp Accelerated: Contemporary Perspectives examines Duchamp and his reception through a series of essays that explore the ongoing impacts of his life, ideas and practice on innumerable fields of research, practice and study. Contributors include art historians, curators, artists and writers who offer histories and approaches that actively challenge dominant narratives on Duchamp, discussing his influences from a multitude of different disciplinary and cultural perspectives. Written in the specific context of the 21st century, this volume situates the artist firmly in a global context and highlights the numerous influences – from theories of perception and the writings of Georges Bataille, to travels in Argentina – that shaped his ideas and art. This volume pushes current understandings of Duchamp beyond existing limits by accelerating the histories, encounters, dialogues and interpretations of his practice, with a focus on contemporary perspectives. The 'accelerated' Duchamp that emerges from this analysis is one who not only speeds up notions of art in relation to cultural and political histories, but one whose practice is actively informing future developments in the worlds of art and material culture today.