Dada: Art and Anti-Art

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Hans Richter

Oxford University Press, New York, London, 1978; originally published 1965 (in German), English

Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

ISBN: 9780195200713

From the Publisher (Thames & Hudson). ‘’Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer’s birthplace,” writes Hans Richter, the artist and filmmaker closely associated with this radical and transforming movement from its earliest days. Here he records and traces Dada’s history, from its inception in about 1916 in wartime Zurich, to its collapse in Paris in 1922 when many of its members were to join the Surrealist movement, down to the present day when its spirit re-emerged first in the 1960s with, for example, Pop art. Features an extensive use of Dada documents, illustrations, and a variety of texts by fellow Dadaists. It is a unique document of the movement, whether in Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Paris or New York. The complex relationships and contributions of, among others, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann, Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, are vividly brought to life.

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Bob Gill

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Richter recreates that boisterous and fantastic movement of Dadaism in wartime Zurich and Paris in the 1920s. This collection, which includes Man Ray, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, etc., has been a wonderful source of inspiration.

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