Ball, Hugo (1886–1927)
Born in Pirmasens on February 22, 1886, the German writer Hugo Ball is best known as the co-founder, with Tristan Tzara, of the Cabaret Voltaire…
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Automatism
Both Dada and Surrealist writers and artists experimented with “automatic” creative production. Dadaists including Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, and Kurt Schwitters wrote “automatic”…
Tzara, Tristan (1896-1963)
Born Samuel (Samy or Sami) Rosenstock in Moineşti, Romania, Tristan Tzara was an avant-garde poet, performer, critic, and film director. Together with Hugo Ball, Hans…
Dadaism
Dada began in Zurich, Switzerland, in the midst of World War I. Several expatriate artists converged in the city to escape the brutal and seemingly…
Montage
As an aesthetic principle, montage, defined as the assemblage of disparate elements into a composite whole often by way of juxtaposition, is most often associated…
Dadaism in Film
Members of the Dada cultural and artistic movement began to experiment with film as a means to disseminate their stylistic partialities and cultural values through…
Cabaret Voltaire
The Cabaret Voltaire, housed within the Holländische Meierei bar at Spiegelgasse 1, in Zürich’s Niederdorf district, was the original breeding ground for the Zürich Dada…
Automatism [REVISED AND EXPANDED]
There were different directions and forms connnected to Dada but an important element within it was a position of critique of established art and society.…
Segal, Arthur (1875–1944)
Arthur Segal was a Romanian artist born as Aron Sigalu to Jewish parents. He shifted his attention away from post-impressionist modernism around 1900 to focus…
Arp, Hans/Jean (1886–1966)
Hans/Jean Arp is an Alsatian poet and artist, who was a founding member of Dada and an active participant in Constructivism and Surrealism. Arp grew…
Loos, Adolf (1870–1933)
Born in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic, Adolf Loos was a critic, architect and designer famous for his vehement rejection of ornament. Educated in…
Cunard, Nancy (1896–1965)
A poet, journalist, publisher, radical intellectual, and political activist, Nancy Cunard operated at or near the centre of multiple modernist discourses. Her early poetry, especially…
Man Ray (1890-1976)
Born Emmanuel Radnitzky, Man Ray was one of the key innovators in modernist photography, film, and object making. He began his artistic career as a…
Picabia, Francis (1879–1953)
A cavalier individualist, Francis Picabia became an internationally renowned avant-garde artist, spearheading Paris and New York Dada with his friend Marcel Duchamp and also contributing…
Delaunay, Sonia (1885–1979)
Sonia Delaunay, lately often referred to as Delaunay-Terk, was a painter and textile designer who, together with her husband Robert Delaunay, was the precursor of…
Parnakh, Valentin Yakovlevich (1891–1951)
Brother of the celebrated poet Sofia Parnok, Valentin Parnakh was a Russo-Soviet dancer, jazz musician, actor, poet, and translator, a mover and shaker of the…
Simultaneism (simultanéisme)
Neither a movement, nor a group of loosely connected artists, Simultaneism instead describes a tendency in modernist avant-garde art and literature from roughly 1912 through…
Satie, Erik Alfred Leslie (1866–1925)
Erik Satie’s compositions, writings, and humor played an important role in many modernist movements of the twentieth century. Experimenting with simple forms, neoclassicism, mysticism, satire,…
Breton, André (1896–1966)
André Breton was a French poet, writer, editor and critic. He is best known as one of the key founders of Surrealism. Breton published the…