LITMIR.BIZ

      Later, in 1920, the Dadaists published one of their manifestos in which there were instructions on how “To Make a Dadaist Poem”:

      And here you will have a writer who is infinitely original and with a charming sensibility, even though it is misunderstood by the masses.[25]

      Tristan Tzara himself never wrote poems using this method, a fact which clearly holds a touch of irony. However, the conception of spontaneity, and the method according to which, in his own words, “thought produces itself in the mouth”, later became, to a considerable degree, the foundation of the working methods of the Surrealists.

      In July 1916, a plan for an artistic and literary journal to be called Dada was announced, but the first number did not appear until July 1917. In 1916, Tzara began to correspond with the Paris dealer Paul Guillaume, who introduced him to Max Jacob, Reverdy and Apollinaire. Apollinaire had become as much of an idol for the leader of the Dada movement, as much of an inspiration as he had been for the Paris avant-garde, “the most lively, alert and enthusiastic of the French poets”.[26] Tzara dedicated several lyrical poems to Apollinaire, full of restrained melancholy. In 1918, the Paris journal SIC published Tzara’s poem “The Death of Guillaume Apollinaire”:

      Dadaism in Zürich was making its presence felt most strongly in literature. All the evenings at the Cabaret Voltaire were accompanied by sketches in fancy-dress, masques and productions of Dadaist plays. However, in the galleries, and even in Zürich’s biggest museum, the Kunsthaus, exhibitions were organised in which Tzara read lectures on modern art. Here, attention was focused on the Expressionists, to whom several of the members of the Zürich Dadaists belonged, and in particular on the abstract painting of Kandinsky. The Zürich Dadaists had some artists of their own as well: Marcel Janko illustrated Tzara’s poems with engravings, and Hans Arp, who also wrote poetry, was now appearing more often at the cabaret evenings in the capacity of an artist. The opening of the Dada Gallery, at which Tzara gave a lecture on Expressionism and Abstractionism, took place on 27 March 1917, and the following day Tzara gave a lecture on Art Nouveau. In the spring of 1917, after a long stay in America, Francis Picabia arrived in Switzerland. He composed poems that were very similar to those of Tzara. They began to correspond, feeling that they were soul mates. Picabia, inspired by the correspondence, went back to the work in drawing that he had long neglected, while Tzara busied himself enthusiastically on the journal Dada. Tzara invited Francis Picabia to the exhibition at the Kunsthaus. They spent three weeks together in Zürich in January and February of 1919. The association, and then the friendship, of Tristan Tzara and Picabia was the beginning of the contact between the Zürich Dadaists and their like-minded colleagues in Paris. On January 17, 1920, Tzara went to see Picabia in Paris, where he immediately became acquainted with André Breton, Paul Éluard and Philippe Soupault, and became involved in the events staged by the Paris Dadaists – the future Surrealists.

      Dada Outside Zürich

      Francis Picabia brought to Paris the discoveries of those in America who had gone down the Dadaist road. The American avant-garde knew nothing of the Dadaists of Zürich, yet they were motivated by the same nihilism that had become a generalized feature of this artistic generation. The movement for freedom in art got under way earlier there than in Europe. In 1913, an international exhibition of modern art took place in New York, now well-known under the name of the “Armoury Show”. The modernist tendencies of European painting were represented in it; in particular, Marcel Duchamp’s picture Nude Descending a Staircase, and two pictures by Picabia, Dances at the Spring and Procession to Seville, were on display – they all provoked outrage and enjoyed success.

      Francis Picabia, the son of a Cuban diplomat and a Frenchwoman, was born in Paris in 1879. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs, and from 1899 he showed his work at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909, he painted his first abstract picture, Rubber. In 1910, he met Marcel Duchamp. In the nihilist movement in the United States, along with Americans, there were Europeans who had taken refuge from the war. Several avant-garde groups arose in New York. Artists and poets gathered around journals or galleries. These centres included the gallery of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the salon of the collector Walter Conrad Arensberg, and certain chess clubs that were currently fashionable. What brought about the real turning-point in this movement was the arrival in America of two French artists – Marcel Duchamp and, following close behind him, Francis Picabia. Duchamp was exempted from his military service, and preferred to take refuge from the ostentatious patriotism of a warlike Paris in the United States. Picabia had been mobilised in the capacity of a driver to one of the generals and ordered to a post in Cuba, but he preferred to remain in New York.

      André Breton, Untitled (Poem Object, for Jacqueline), 1937.

      Collage, cloth on cardboard, with ribbon, sheet, tarot card, metal mecanism, punched cardboard, ink, place in a box (not represented here), 39.5 × 30.5 cm.

      The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

      Victor Brauner, André Breton, Oscar Domínguez,

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