what is dada

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in Europe and North America in the early 20th century, with early centers in Zurich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire. The movement was a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests, which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of World War I, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity in art and society that corresponded to the war. The name "Dada" is attributed to Richard Huelsenbeck and Hugo Ball, although there are different theories about its origin. The movement rejected reason, rationality, and order of the emerging capitalist society, instead favoring chaos, nonsense, and anti-bourgeois sentiment. Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old. The most renowned Dada artists include Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray in Paris, George Grosz, Otto Dix, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, and Kurt Schwitters in Germany, and Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco, and Jean Arp in Zurich. Dadaism is considered a named influence and reference of various anti-art and political and cultural movements, including the Situationist International and culture jamming groups like the Cacophony Society.