Dada (& Surrealism)

DADA

Dada was considered to be the highest art, described by Dadaists that it “ will be the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week, which is forever trying to collect itself”.

The founder was Hugo Ball. Also helping him found this movement was Tristan Tzara and Jean Hans Arp. They met and they sought spontaneity through childhood and care.  They used a number of magazines to promote their art. This is a direct attachment to graphic design. Jean Hans Arp applied the law of chance to his artworks, and later on his fellow Dadaists adopted his law. 

Club Dada 1918-20

Der Dada   1918-20

Max Ernst      -The Elephant Celebes

-Murdering Airplane (1920)

Kurt Schwitters, another Dadaist, introduced machine made words not arrange in any traditional rules instead of hand drawn images. He also used narrow range typeface instead of the normal typeface used at the time. He later on invented the Merz, Schwitters published a periodical called Merz between 1923–32, in which each issue was devoted to a central theme. Merz 5 1923, for instance, was a portfolio of prints by Hans Arp, Merz 8/9, 1924, was edited and typeset by El Lissitzky, Merz 14/15, 1925, was a typographical children's story entitled The Scarecrow by Schwitters, Kätte Steinitz and Theo van Doesburg. The last edition, Merz 24, 1932, was a complete transcription of the final draft of the Ursonate, with typography by Jan Tschichold. It was at this time that graphic design emerged as part of the modern industrial society.

Photomontage was used also in the dada movement, to construct rather than to paint. The Russian Constructivists introduced this into their designs also, roughly at the same time as it started getting popular with Dada.

Gustav Klimt - Lenin walking over the world

Some characteristics of Dada graphic design as illustrated in this poster are dynamic diagonals and sans serif typefaces. They used black, white and red, and their design influenced the Bauhaus and the Constructivists.

Hannah Hoch Collage (1919) – used fragments of images taken from pop culture and incorporated them into the Dada artworks.

Hannah Hoch – Pretty Maiden (1920)

Above we see Jon Heartfield’s parody poster in favour of the industry. Written at the bottom is  ‘Iron makes a country strong, butter and lard make people fat’. He created many pro Communist posters and in the 60’s he created anti-Vietnam posters.

John Heartfield - War and corpses

George Grosz – Dusk

George Grosz – Eclipse of the Sun

Dada ended in 1922, and was considered the forerunner of Surrealism.

Surrealism

This art movement challenged the rational and was attracted towards the imagination potential in dreams. Main artists in this movement were Juan Miro, Jean Hans Arp, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí.

This movement did not include much graphic design so will not be included.

links:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2140091
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/arts-culture/dada-115169154/

http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/Modernism_2.aspx?id=75