The term Dada or Dadaism refers to an art movement that took place mostly in Europe in the early twentieth century. Even though it was seen mostly in Europe, Dada also had artists participating in it in North America and specifically New York around 1915. The beginnings of Dada itself has a strong link to the outbreak of World War I and for many of the people participating it was a protest against the the government and the upper and middle classes of our society. Not only was Dada strongly against the war but it also had close association with the radical left side of the political spectrum. It was born out of the negative reactions to the struggle that the everyday people were seeing with the war and many believed that the logic and reason …show more content…
According to the Oxford Art Online1 page on Dada the movement first emerged in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916 when a group of artists began gathering together at the Cabaret Voltaire which was founded by a German writer Hugo Ball. This group was sickened at the war and disgusted by the fact that their society had let it happen. The movement ended up going to extremes to disrupt the public complacency with what is going on around them and subvert the values that were previously held in high regard by the upper and middle class people. While this was going on in Zurich, New York also became a hot spot for artists that wanted to participate in the Dada movement. By 1916 Marcel Duchamp had already arrived in The United States and was working on challenging the traditional ideas of art and culture. Berlin Dada began in 1917 and was thought of generally as the more violent counterpart to the Swiss Dada movement as the region was being heavily affected by the war. It finally reached Paris in 1919 and was doing its best to fuel critical thinking of the political system and issues that were arising in general. Overall Dada was very successful in the different regions of the world questioning the previously accepted norms and traditions that were present in art of that