Crisis and the Arts: the History of Dada: The Coordinates of Cultural Politics Vol 1 Book

Edited by Stephen C. Foster, Director of the Fine Arts Dada Archive & Research Center, University of Iowa. . . Dada was probably the most radical and significant of all the avant-garde movements which flourished in the early twentieth century. . . . [Crisis and the Arts] is a monumental project whose importance will be massive and enduring. -- Dr. Richard Sheppard, Magdalen College, Oxford, United Kingdom[Professor Foster] knows well the material, the scholarly literature, and the international network of scientists in the field of twentieth-century art history. . . . The completion of this project will enhance resources available at colleges and universities everywhere. -- Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath, Director, Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany Drawing together an excellent slate of authors, the series addresses virtually every aspect of Dada, from cultural politics . . . to its manifestations in Eastern Europe and Japan, areas with little if any previous literature. -- Patricia Leighten, Fellow and Associate Professor, Queens University, CanadaDuring World War I, an international group of young artists and writers fled to Zurich, in neutral Switzerland. In reaction to the horror of the War and the onslaught of new technology, as well as to the suffocating aesthetics of futurism and cubism, these artists began to create a new kind of art -- art that was antilogical, anti-aesthetic, anarchistic, confrontational, shocking. Performing and exhibiting at the famous Cafe Voltaire, these artists called the new art Dada.Dada soon exploded on the scene in other art capitals of the world: Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, even New York. Participants in the Dada movement included some of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Jean Arp, Sophie Taeuber Arp, Hans Richter, George Grosz, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hch, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Raoul Hausmann, Marcel Duchamp, and others alarmed critics, incited outrage, and generally tried to throw into question every possible preconceived notion about art and life.The Dada movement offered one of the first, most systematic, and perhaps most probing prognoses and analyses of what has been described as the crisis of modernism. Operating out of a period of acute cultural and social collapse and revolution, Dada provided a model for critique which continues to influence the present profoundly. Approaching the millennium, G.K. Hall & Co. is proud to announce the publication of Crisis and the Arts, the largest and most comprehensive treatment of any 20th-century artistic movement -- and the first to explore Dada in its broad sociopolitical matrix.8 volumes published between 1996 and 1998Lacking self-identified Dadaist, the initial task of this volume is to identify those movements in Baltic, Slavic, and Asian regions that exhibit the same spirit of revolt and criticism that typified their Western contemporaries.19976 x 9est. 400 pp. Read More