DADA NEW YORK

Almost simultaneously to its birth in Zurich, Dada emerged in New York, where "the Spaniard Picabia, the Frenchman Duchamp, and the American Ray made up the creative triumvirate which led the New York Dada group" (Richter 96). In addition to their nihilistic art, this group utilized their publications, "The Blind Man", "Rongwrong", and "New York Dada", to demolish aesthetic standards (What Is Dada 1998). Marcel Duchamp, a dynamic leader of the New York group, created not anti-art, but what he liked to call "dry art," which was art which included no aesthetic notion, even emotion or judgment (Alexandrian 34). Duchamp was famous for his so-called "ready-mades," which were ordinary commercial products displayed as art, most notably a store-bought bottle rack and a urinal (Dada 1998). Richter’s interpretation: "The bottle-rack says ‘Art is junk.’ The urinal says ‘Art is a trick’" (90). It was his imperturbable severity in rejecting the easy course, and his power of intellectual concentration that gave his actions their real value. He became the ‘ascetic of non-sense.’ Even after Duchamp abandoned painting in 1923, he still had a strong influence over the avant-garde, and they treated him like a referee to decide who should be allowed to join their group; he was treated this way not because of what he had done, but what he had chosen not to do (Alexandrian 39). As Duchamp was the ‘ascetic of non-sense," Francis Picabia was the "aristocrat of disorder." He started off his career in art by painting landscapes in the style of Sisley and Pissarro. His first exhibition, in Paris in 1905, was an incredible success, and Picabia was named a "post-impressionist of the future." This life, however, was not for Picabia, and in 1908, he broke from his contracts with his dealer and began a search for pleasure in art and life, taking up abstraction in 1909 with Rubber, a year ahead of Kadinsky, who is known for his early entrance into abstraction. Rich, witty and volatile, Picabia "used painting as a springboard from which to make giddy and perilous leaps," (Alexandrian 41). In addition to Duchamp’s reviews, Picabia also founded an artistic review for New York Dada called 391 in January of 1917 (Dada Almanach 41). It was a collaboration between Picabia and his friend Duchamp that created the L.H.O.O.Q., subtitled Elle A Chaud au Cul ("She Has Hot Pants") in 1919 (Alexandrian 35). It was Man Ray, however, who created Boardwalk, which became the trademark of the New York Dada group. "From the very start he was a publicity expert with all the tricks of the trade at his fingertips," and he brought to Dada the ‘Uselessness Effect’ (Richter 96). As the New York and Zurich groups matured, their influences continued to spread, and "in 1917, the Dada movement was transmitted to Berlin, where it took on a more political character" (What Is Dada 1998).

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