A formative Era of the early 20th Century
Initially conceived as a revolt against art by the artists themselves, who declined the society of their time and the according value system, significant impulses went out from Dada to modern art up to the present contemporary art.
Dada originated in the middle of the First World War, 1916 in Zurich. The founders Hugo Ball and Richard Huelsenbeck searched for a name for a companioned artist, took a German/French dictionary, typed on a word and ended up at "Dada" (French for wooden horses). They did not take the name for the companioned artist, but for their own idiosyncratic art style - Dadaism.
Dada is, in fact, as already the naming process, in its essence without concept and against all existing concepts. The art style was spreading rapidly starting from Switzerland to all major cities of the world: Berlin, New York, Paris. At the beginning war was the first major topic of early Dadaism. It is useless and for the artists the new art style was a provocation and a protest form. In painting a new collage technique arises. Pioneer of this technique is Kurt Schwitters. He refined his art over the years, in which he addresses viewers of his artworks in a provocative and irritating way.
The photomontage provides Dadaism artists new ways to realize the young art of photography dadaistically. Today the destructive impulses and the anti-thoughts of Dadaism are largely displaced. The artworks of the Dadaists are also exhibited in the museum next to images of Picasso and Paul Klee. It seems that Dadaism itself has now even evolved to an established art form. Some of the old dadaists became surrealists, and dealt - instead of the anti-spirit - with the world perceived by the senses, to provide the viewer in this context with unsolvable mystery.
