Neo-Dada Art Movement Guide: 5 Influential Neo-Dadaists

Neo-Dadaism was an avant-garde art movement that began in the late 1950s. Art critic Barbara Rose coined the term in reference to the movement’s similarities with the Dadaists of the early twentieth century. In contrast to the intentional controversy that defined Dadaism, Neo-Dadaism was somewhat more playful and ironic. Although both movements sought to close the gap between art and real life, the earlier Dadaists were more emphatically anti-art, highlighting the meaninglessness of the art world in their works. The Neo-Dadaist art movement contained disparate artists united by their simultaneous celebration and mockery of commercialism and popular culture.

The original Dada movement started in Zürich, Switzerland, around the mid-1910s in response to World War I, bourgeois culture, and the rise of nationalism. One of the most influential Dada artists was Marcel Duchamp, whose controversial readymade sculpture Fountain (1917) featured a porcelain urinal. Decades later, in the 1950s, a group of American artists revived some of the Dada principles, challenging the dominant Abstract Expressionist trends artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning helped cultivate. The Neo-Dadaists developed new avant-garde styles that paved the way for pop art, Fluxus, and Nouveau Réalisme.

Neo-Dadaism incorporates a vast array of styles and art forms, but there are a few consistent characteristics to the movement.

1. 1. A spirit of collaboration: The Neo-Dada art movement was highly collaborative, bringing together dancers, painters, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and poets. This unrestricted approach allowed artists to freely work with one another, often bringing multiple different art forms together for one piece.
2. 2. Use of absurdist contrast: Neo-Dadaists often employed dark humor, irony, and nonsense to criticize the consumer culture of the modern world as well as the Cold War climate in the United States.
3. 3. Emphasis on the viewer’s interpretation: Neo-Dadaism emphasized the interpretation of the viewer over the intent of the artist. This innovative style marked a shift away from previously held ideas in modern art that prized logic, reason, and meaning.
4. 4. Experimentation with materials: Neo-Dadaists used found objects and unexpected materials in their artworks. By using everyday items and popular imagery, Neo-Dadaism blurred the lines between high art and low art.
   

If you’re interested in Neo-Dadaism, explore the works from these influential artists.

1. 1. Robert Rauschenberg: Robert Rauschenberg was a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist who pushed artistic boundaries throughout his career. His White Paintings (1951) were simple and thought-provoking additions to Abstract Expressionism. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Rauschenberg moved past the limits of that style by using everyday objects in his art, creating what he termed “Combines,” like his artwork Rhyme (1956), which incorporated a necktie on a painted canvas. His silkscreen paintings like Retroactive I (1963) used photographs and images taken from the press.
2. 2. Jasper Johns: After serving in the army, Jasper Johns befriended Robert Rauschenberg, avant-garde composer John Cage, and choreographer Merce Cunningham. In 1954 at the age of 24, Johns began work on a hot wax painting called Flag, featuring a reproduction of the American flag, that he eventually sold to the Museum of Modern Art. Rauschenberg dove deeper into reimagining everyday objects with paintings like Target with Four Faces (1955) and Map (1961). His Painted Bronze (1960) was a sculpture of empty beer cans. Johns’s innovative artworks encouraged viewers to rethink their concept of art, setting the stage for new movements like pop a\rt and minimalism.
3. 3. Merce Cunningham: A groundbreaking Neo-Dada choreographer, Merce Cunningham was on the cutting edge of the American dance world for over 50 years. In his early twenties, Cunningham studied at the Martha Graham Dance Company. By 1953, he had ventured out on his own, starting the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cunningham collaborated with other renowned artists like composer John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. He developed a choreography style influenced by ideas about chance and luck, as evident in Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1951) and Suite by Chance (1953).
4. 4. John Cage: One of the most original composers of the twentieth century, John Cage explored sound with his use of unconventional instruments and multimedia elements. He often collaborated with other Neo-Dadaists, including his creative and romantic partner Merce Cunningham. Cage’s composition 4′33″ (1952) involved his musicians and performers staying silent for the duration of the piece—a full four minutes and 33 seconds. His thought-provoking approach to music impacted the art world throughout the 1950s and the following decades.
5. 5. Allan Kaprow: A pioneer of performance art, Allan Kaprow was more interested in the process of making art than the artwork itself. Born in Atlantic City in 1927, Kaprow moved to New York City in his late teens to study art and painting. After attending a class taught by John Cage, Kaprow moved away from traditional forms, focusing instead on philosophies about the process of making art, eventually developing the idea of “Happenings,” a type of performance art that blurred the lines between performer and spectator. He also worked with the assemblage of everyday materials in a unique context, as with Words (1962), which featured two rooms filled with records and written posters. He encouraged the audience to interact with and add to the installation.

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