dada: art and anti-artby hans richter

Leonardo

Dada: Art and Anti-Art by Hans RichterReview by: Peter C. MarzioLeonardo, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1973), pp. 71-72Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572434 .

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'communication theories' are unconvincing to me. I believe that an artist through his art work transmits not his thoughts but a kind of vital shaking. Art is much more than 'language' or metaphor, for it contributes to communion among people, which is of the highest importance to society. I regret that Berleant has not recognized this role of art.

Among the debris of all the hypotheses, Berleant presents his own. His notion of the 'aesthetic field' may be new, at least I find that I am sympathetic to it. It merges the artist (as well as the performer), the art object and the perceiver into one whole or field where the transaction of art takes place purely as experience. The elements of the 'field' are studied separately and I was especially in- terested in his views on the role of the artist, whom he obviously considers mainly from the outside. Contrary to Berleant, I believe an artist is neither a master of knowledge nor is he 'the voice of the gods', he simply does his best; that for a perceiver to know the genesis and technique of an art work is of second importance, if not a 'surrogate', and that the artist is a little more than just a 'participant' in the aesthetic field.

The author studies nine characteristics of the aesthetic field: active-reactive, qualitative, sensuous, immediate, intuitive, non-cognitive, unique, intrinsic and integral. But save for a few excellent paragraphs (pp. 112-113) that are exceptionally metaphorical and poetic, the art experience itself is rarely des- cribed and, indeed, is declared as undescribable (p. 139, quoting Santayana). It is a pity, for that was the substance for which I was longing. Perhaps such a supreme experience can be conveyed only by resort to a lyrical description of illustrated examples.

Berleant is conscious of the austere limitations he has imposed on himself. He confesses that he has given 'an analytic portrayal of what is perceptually unified and continuous' (p. 156). This will hardly satisfy artists and art lovers. Undoubtedly he has written an excellent book for aestheticians and their students. It has the merit of pointing out the existence of human aesthetic experience in such a way that one is led to think about it in what seems to me to be the right direction.

Dada: Art and Anti-art. Hans Richter. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1971. 246 pp., illus. $7.50. Reviewed by: Peter C. Marzio*

For those of us who were born a decade or two after the Dada movement died, it is difficult to comprehend what the social fuss in artistic circles of the 1910's was all about. Why did it annoy critics to see unadorned toilets exhibited as works of fine art? Why didn't the traditionalists simply ignore Duchamp, Picabia, Cocteau, Ernst, Arp, and the other non-artists-just make believe they did not exist? The answer is the heart of Hans Richter's ebullient but well reasoned book. It is the kind of

'communication theories' are unconvincing to me. I believe that an artist through his art work transmits not his thoughts but a kind of vital shaking. Art is much more than 'language' or metaphor, for it contributes to communion among people, which is of the highest importance to society. I regret that Berleant has not recognized this role of art.

Among the debris of all the hypotheses, Berleant presents his own. His notion of the 'aesthetic field' may be new, at least I find that I am sympathetic to it. It merges the artist (as well as the performer), the art object and the perceiver into one whole or field where the transaction of art takes place purely as experience. The elements of the 'field' are studied separately and I was especially in- terested in his views on the role of the artist, whom he obviously considers mainly from the outside. Contrary to Berleant, I believe an artist is neither a master of knowledge nor is he 'the voice of the gods', he simply does his best; that for a perceiver to know the genesis and technique of an art work is of second importance, if not a 'surrogate', and that the artist is a little more than just a 'participant' in the aesthetic field.

The author studies nine characteristics of the aesthetic field: active-reactive, qualitative, sensuous, immediate, intuitive, non-cognitive, unique, intrinsic and integral. But save for a few excellent paragraphs (pp. 112-113) that are exceptionally metaphorical and poetic, the art experience itself is rarely des- cribed and, indeed, is declared as undescribable (p. 139, quoting Santayana). It is a pity, for that was the substance for which I was longing. Perhaps such a supreme experience can be conveyed only by resort to a lyrical description of illustrated examples.

Berleant is conscious of the austere limitations he has imposed on himself. He confesses that he has given 'an analytic portrayal of what is perceptually unified and continuous' (p. 156). This will hardly satisfy artists and art lovers. Undoubtedly he has written an excellent book for aestheticians and their students. It has the merit of pointing out the existence of human aesthetic experience in such a way that one is led to think about it in what seems to me to be the right direction.

Dada: Art and Anti-art. Hans Richter. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1971. 246 pp., illus. $7.50. Reviewed by: Peter C. Marzio*

For those of us who were born a decade or two after the Dada movement died, it is difficult to comprehend what the social fuss in artistic circles of the 1910's was all about. Why did it annoy critics to see unadorned toilets exhibited as works of fine art? Why didn't the traditionalists simply ignore Duchamp, Picabia, Cocteau, Ernst, Arp, and the other non-artists-just make believe they did not exist? The answer is the heart of Hans Richter's ebullient but well reasoned book. It is the kind of

* Associate Curator of Prints, The National Museum of History and Technology, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A.

* Associate Curator of Prints, The National Museum of History and Technology, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A.

book that becomes more important with age. It was first published in the Fed. Rep. of Germany in 1964, then translated into English in 1965 and now it appears for a second showing. It deserves a long life.

One obtains an insider's view of an international school of creativity. Hans Richter was an original member of Dada, so he has correctly assumed the job of zeroing-in on given events and providing a minute by minute account. He recreates specific environments and saves for us those too soon forgotten juxtapositions that are the heart of history. Who else but a person who was there could write: 'To understand the climate in which Dada began, it is necessary to recall how much freedom there was in Zurich, even during a world war. The Cabaret Voltaire played and raised hell at No. 1, Spiegelgasse. Diagonally opposite, at No. 12, Spiegelgasse, the same narrow thoroughfare in which the Cabaret Voltaire mounted its nightly orgies of singing, poetry and dancing, lived Lenin. Radek, Lenin and Zinoviev were allowed complete liberty. I saw Lenin in the library several times and once heard him speak at a meeting in Berne. He spoke good German. It seemed to me that the Swiss authorities were much more suspicious of the Dadaists, who were after all capable of perpetrating some new enormity at any moment, than of these quiet, studious Russians... even though the latter were planning a world revolution and later aston- ished the authorities by carrying it out.'

Like most first-hand accounts that mirror the confusion of history, Richter's analytical narrative has a tendency to meander from a central thesis. This book, like Dada itself, has a loose eclectic quality that, more often than not, works in his favor. He throws in paragraphs about laughter, technology, 'un-communities' and abstract poetry without too much concern for literary transition or flow. But somehow it seems correct.

His account is remarkably free of heroes and villians and one comes away with the idea that the importance of Dada lay not in its individuals but in its communal ideology, its ability to perceive the important questions about art and its social role. Despite the wild antics of some of its apostles, Dada, insists Richter, could not be ignored even by the 'stuffed shirts', because it was an affirmative movement that created more than it destroyed. It took firm positions on most important aesthetic questions and answered the ridicule of passers-by with a bewildering display of originality and beauty (a word that was foreign to the Dada vocabulary).

Richter's book is for anyone but it demands the serious attention of today's working artists. It demonstrates the need for artistic communities, manifestos, debates and magazines. It shows how creators and men with ideas, such as the Dadaists, need to rub one another's minds and 'funny bones' in order to get along in an insensitive world of unimaginative ordering and flabby wills.

book that becomes more important with age. It was first published in the Fed. Rep. of Germany in 1964, then translated into English in 1965 and now it appears for a second showing. It deserves a long life.

One obtains an insider's view of an international school of creativity. Hans Richter was an original member of Dada, so he has correctly assumed the job of zeroing-in on given events and providing a minute by minute account. He recreates specific environments and saves for us those too soon forgotten juxtapositions that are the heart of history. Who else but a person who was there could write: 'To understand the climate in which Dada began, it is necessary to recall how much freedom there was in Zurich, even during a world war. The Cabaret Voltaire played and raised hell at No. 1, Spiegelgasse. Diagonally opposite, at No. 12, Spiegelgasse, the same narrow thoroughfare in which the Cabaret Voltaire mounted its nightly orgies of singing, poetry and dancing, lived Lenin. Radek, Lenin and Zinoviev were allowed complete liberty. I saw Lenin in the library several times and once heard him speak at a meeting in Berne. He spoke good German. It seemed to me that the Swiss authorities were much more suspicious of the Dadaists, who were after all capable of perpetrating some new enormity at any moment, than of these quiet, studious Russians... even though the latter were planning a world revolution and later aston- ished the authorities by carrying it out.'

Like most first-hand accounts that mirror the confusion of history, Richter's analytical narrative has a tendency to meander from a central thesis. This book, like Dada itself, has a loose eclectic quality that, more often than not, works in his favor. He throws in paragraphs about laughter, technology, 'un-communities' and abstract poetry without too much concern for literary transition or flow. But somehow it seems correct.

His account is remarkably free of heroes and villians and one comes away with the idea that the importance of Dada lay not in its individuals but in its communal ideology, its ability to perceive the important questions about art and its social role. Despite the wild antics of some of its apostles, Dada, insists Richter, could not be ignored even by the 'stuffed shirts', because it was an affirmative movement that created more than it destroyed. It took firm positions on most important aesthetic questions and answered the ridicule of passers-by with a bewildering display of originality and beauty (a word that was foreign to the Dada vocabulary).

Richter's book is for anyone but it demands the serious attention of today's working artists. It demonstrates the need for artistic communities, manifestos, debates and magazines. It shows how creators and men with ideas, such as the Dadaists, need to rub one another's minds and 'funny bones' in order to get along in an insensitive world of unimaginative ordering and flabby wills.

Historians will find the book useful as a personal memoir but Richter's failure to provide either foot- notes or an annotated bibliography will force

Historians will find the book useful as a personal memoir but Richter's failure to provide either foot- notes or an annotated bibliography will force

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Books Books Books

researchers of the future to return to the primary sources. Curiously enough, the least satisfying chapter is the last, 'Neo-Dada', an attempt to relate the social and aesthetic characteristics of today to the Dada years of yesterday. It seems out of place in this diary format, like a naive attempt to make history 'relevant'. But the postscript by Werner Haftmann redeems the work from fadishness. It is tightly written and summarizes, in a scholarly manner, much of what Richter's book is about.

Serial Imagery. John Coplans. The New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut (in association with the Pasadena Art Museum) 1969. 143 pp., illus. $12.00. Reviewed by: Albert Garrett*

This is an authoritative and well constructed account, documenting and analyzing the development of serial imagery, which in the past decade has played such an important role in American art. One can be thankful for the 1968 Pasadena Art Museum Exhibition, which brought together such a comprehensive collection of works that enabled the author to devote an illustrated chapter for each artist. Much of the adverse public reaction and critical confusion over serial imagery has been largely due to the showing of single works with little or no reference to the complete series of which they are a part.

The antecedents of serial imagery are Monet's sequencies, for example, the fifteen 'Haystacks', twenty 'Poplars' and twenty 'Rouen Cathedrals', ending in the 'Nympheas' series. In addition to Monet, the author introduces the precursors of these kinds of works, such as Jawlensky, Duchamp, Mondrian and Albers. The other artists included all conform strictly to the concept of the serial development of a macro-structure and include Ad Rein- hardt, Larry Bell, Ellsworth Kelly, Yves Klein, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.

Serial imagery refers to a sequence of works in which forms with a common but changing structure are repeated. The author states that seriality is identifiable by a particular inter-relationship of forms that is rigorously consistent in structure and syntax. Central to serial imagery is macro-structure, which is apprehended in terms of relational order and of continuity but not in terms of relational order and of magnitude.

There appears to be a peak of approximately twenty works to a series, as in the case of Monet. It may be that some contemporary artists resort to serial imagery as a reaction to trying to make a traditional 'masterpiece', with the intention that each work in a series has equal value and be complete in itself. They, in a way, echo an anti-art













attitude of the Dadaists, who, nevertheless, pro- duced works that I would call 'masterpieces'. The main feature underlying the works of American serial artists is a focusing upon a single point within a macro-structure.

The author, although he makes no claims, has documented the features required for describing a 'school of art' based upon works of artists that have similar technical characteristics and, though stylis- tically individual, stem from a common interest in serial and sequential development. The idea of 'schools' is out of fashion at the moment; however, this book illuminates a new, little-studied area of space-time-form expression.

The Living Arts of Nigeria. Ed., William Fagg. Studio Vista, London, 1971. 100 pp., illus. ?5.00. Reviewed by: Romare Bearden* and Carl Holty**

The second paragraph of this book gives a good idea of its rather manifold aims: 'This is not, need- less to say, to be thought of as a textbook, still less as an encyclopaedia. Rather it is a sampling of the very many crafts of Nigeria, chosen because they still flourish, though mostly in greater or less degree now dependent on overseas tourists. Furthermore, it is exoteric and impressionistic, being intended pri- marily to interest the general public. Yet ethnolo- gists or ethnographers may learn from it too, especially if they have sometimes thought of doing a compendious work on the technology of one country; let them form a team with a first-class professional photographer and if possible an artist, and with suitable planning the job should be done in less than a month's work. There is room for at least one such book for each of the African countries and for many others in the rest of the world'.

In spite of the editor's good words, the book is disappointing, especially as to what it shows and, indeed, as to what is the real importance of the arts and crafts under survey. It attempts to combine the appeal of a travel brochure with rather detailed references to Nigerian artists and craftsmen at work. The photographs, all of which are in color, are quite handsome; although for a book of its price they are too few in number. The pedestrian watercolors that illustrate the text are of a kind one usually sees in 'history of civilization' compilations for the general public. These commercial watercolors disrupt the serious contemplation of the illustrations of Nigeria's fine art works, which often achieve real authority and splendor.

It is also regrettable that there are so few illustrations and aesthetic evaluations of beadwork, brass- casting, dyed cloths, leatherwork, pottery and weaving. Since the editor is noted for his interpre- tation of African tribal cultures and for his know- ledgeable evaluations of African arts, we wonder why













* 10, Sunningdale, Eastcote, Ruislip, Middlesex HA4-9SR, England.



* 357 Canal Street, New York, N.Y. 10013, U.S.A. ** 327 Central Park West, New York, N.Y. 10024, U.S.A. * 357 Canal Street, New York, N.Y. 10013, U.S.A. ** 327 Central Park West, New York, N.Y. 10024, U.S.A. * 357 Canal Street, New York, N.Y. 10013, U.S.A. ** 327 Central Park West, New York, N.Y. 10024, U.S.A.

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dada: art and anti-artby hans richter

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