Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Oliver A. I. Botar ,  Irina M. Denischenko ,  Gábor Dobó ,  Merse Pál Szeredi
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   42
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 4.80cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   1.226kg
ISBN:  

9789004526730

ISBN 10:   9004526730
Pages:   664
Publication Date:   31 January 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction: “Dada Is more than Dada”  Oliver A. I. Botar, Irina Denischenko, Gábor Dobó and Merse Pál Szeredi Part 1:Topographies 1 An Exchange Point in a Network: Prague and Dada, 1918–1922  Jindrich Toman 2 Becoming Avant-Garde: Romanian Appropriations of Dada Techniques through East-Central European Networking  Emanuel Modoc 3 Polish Responses to Dadaism: The Voices on Dada, Contacts and Interpretations  Przemyslaw Strozek 4 The Dada Entr’acte of Dragan Aleksic  Jasna Jovanov 5 Hungarian Dada: the Missing Link  András Kappanyos Part 2: In/Exclusions 6 Céline Arnauld, the “Nomadic” Avant-Garde Writer: a Transnational Approach to Her Life and Work  Iulia Dondorici 7 Two Mysterious “Mademoiselles”: Jeanne Rigaud and Maria Cantarelli  A Multilingual Multi-Layered Dada Pun Unravelled?  Hubert van den Berg 8 Dada as an Avant-Garde Movement and as Invective  Károly Kókai 9 “Dada Is the Best Paying Concern of the Day”: Consumer Culture, Performativity, and the Avant-Garde in Romania  Alexandra Chiriac Part 3: Performativities 10 Marcel Breuer and Dada Performance: Remade Readymade Self and Furniture  Edit Tóth 11 Míra Holzbachová: Embodying the Avant-Garde  Meghan Forbes 12 To Write with Dots or Not to Write at All? Dada Ideas in Polish Interwar Literature  Michalina Kmiecik 13 Green Donkey Theatre: a Case Study on Theatrical Innovations in the Name of Dadaism  Sára Bagdi and Judit Galácz Part 4: Trans(pos)itions 14 The Genesis of Dada: Futurist Influences in Germany, Romania and at the Cabaret Voltaire  Günter Berghaus 15 Revolt and Authority: From Kassák to Erdély  Dada in the Hungarian Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde  Éva Forgács 16 Dadá, not Dáda: Moholy-Nagy in Berlin, 1920–1921  Oliver A. I. Botar 17 Words, Sounds, Images, Theories: the Authors of the Magazine IS in the Context of Dadaism  Imre József Balázs 18 Self-Positioning in the International Avant-Garde: Kassák’s Strategic Use of Dada and Constructivism in the Book of New Artists  Krisztina Zsófia Csaba Part 5: Hybridentities 19 Raoul Hausmann and the Welteislehre: Science and Identity  Arndt Niebisch 20 Dada Lingua Franca: The Linguistic Fate of Tristan Tzara and Raoul Hausmann  Alexandru Bar and Michael White 21 Crossovers and Transgressions: Dada as a Life Strategy in Emil Szittya’s Works  Magdolna Gucsa 22 Android, Cyborg, Dandy and Woman  Representations of the Body in the Decadent and Dada Imaginations: The Hungarian and International Contexts  Györgyi Földes 23 The New Man, According to Sándor Bortnyik  Merse Pál Szeredi Index

Reviews

“Avant-Garde Critical Studies (AGCS) is not only since decades one of the leading academic platforms devoted to research in and reflection on the twentieth-century artistic avant-garde but also the oldest scholarly forum specifically devoted to artistic avant-gardism in the widest sense. […] The first eleven volumes [of AGCS] could for long only be found on bookshelves in libraries. These volumes have now been made available in digital form. They offer a monumental panorama of early avant-garde studies and may still serve today as major resource with fundamental contributions by eminent avant-garde scholars. […] The goal of the series, as set out in issue zero in 1987 by Fernand Drijkoningen, was – and still is today – to serve as a platform to transcend ‘traditional boundaries between disciplines and nationalities’ with ‘an “open” character’. In line with this ambition, the single volumes from the early years of the series all have a profound multifaceted character. Each volume combines essays on different artistic disciplines, be it literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, design, music, performance and film.” - Hubert van den Berg, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

Cannibalizing the Canon has the merit of shedding light on under-researched territories and overlooked issues in avant-garde historiography, restoring the contributions of those artists who did not figure in the canonical constructions of Dadaism and incorporating ephemeral art forms. Using new theoretical approaches and methodological frameworks, the volume challenges the singularity of Dadaism and its founding myths. The focus on the connections between local avant-gardes, employing transmedial and transnational perspectives, corrects and nuances some directions from avant-garde histories, contesting the hegemony of the West and a hierarchical system. Thus, the volume brings a significant contribution to the Dada movement and to the research of the avant-garde.

Author Information

Oliver Botar is a Professor of Art History and Associate Director of the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. His research focuses on early 20th-century Central European Modernism, particularly the work of Moholy-Nagy, with concentrations on art in alternative media, and “Biocentrism” and Modernism in early-to-mid 20th-century art. Irina Denischenko is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on 20th-century literature and visual art--especially the avant-garde, on critical theory, as well as on women’s contributions to avant-garde and modernist aesthetics in Central and Eastern Europe. Gábor Dobó is a research fellow at the Kassák Museum in Budapest. He is the principal investigator of a project focusing on the artist couple Lajos Kassák and Jolán Simon. In 2022, he was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Columbia University. Merse Pál Szeredi is department head at the Kassák Museum. His research focuses on Hungarian avant-garde art and the history of Lajos Kassák’s magazine Ma in Vienna between 1920 and 1925, with special emphasis on its international networks.

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