Dada: The Original Art Rebels documentary (2016)

On the 100th anniversary of Dada, Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) goes on an irreverent trip into the world of the influential avant-garde art movement.
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Absurd, provocative and subversive, Dada began as a response to the madness of World War I. But its radical way of looking at the world inspired generations of artists, writers and musicians, from Monty Python to punk, Bowie to Banksy.

Jim restages an early Dada performance in Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire, where the movement began. Among those joining him in his playful celebration of the Dadaists and their impact are Armando Iannucci, Terry Gilliam, designer Neville Brody and artists Michael Landy and Cornelia Parker.

Dada...

Dada.

Some words seize the imagination and draw you in,

inviting you to delve deeper.

For me, Dada is just one of those words.

An idea, a call to arms and a way of thinking.

OK, ready, here we go.

We're going to embark on a journey.

I'm going to take you, dear viewer, to a place where

no television programme has ever been before, but...

No, what I am going to do is try and persuade you that Dada is

much, much more than an obscure art movement with a funny name.

Oh, yes.

100 years ago, in the midst of a nonsensical war,

Dada made an art out of the absurd.

Mocking politicians,

satirising the media,

and ridiculing centuries of culture,

Dada created a new way of looking at the world.

Sometimes shocking, often anarchic,

and always difficult to define, its legacy would span a century.

Dada's tentacles have spread right across our culture,

from punk

to the Pythons

and from Damien Hirst

to David Bowie.

The world has gone gaga for Dada.

Do you want me to shout "Dada" now?

No.

Everybody's heard of Dada,

but no-one seems to know exactly what it is.

Dada takes delight in contradiction.

So, to help me pin it down, I've enlisted the help of a few friends.

Dada!

Daaaaaaaa-daaaaaaa!

Da-da, Da-da, Da-da-da.

Da! Da!

And, with their assistance, I'll be recreating some Dada performances,

destroying some artworks,

and pulling some mischievous stunts.

There's my Dadaist act for the day.

And all of this to establish why, out of all the isms, movements and

manifestos of the 20th century,

it was the Dadaists who proved the most important,

giving birth not only to a lot of modern art,

but also shaping comedy, music and political protest.

MUSIC: Da Da Da by Trio

LAIDBACK RUSTIC MUSIC PLAYS

I first came across Dada at art school in the early '80s.

It was funnier and more anarchic than anything else I'd

discovered and it didn't always have to make sense.

I soon embarked on nonsensical performances of my own.

I did a performance called I, Kestrel,

where I dropped potatoes from out of a cardboard box.

I was in a band that had no name, but we smelt of curry.

It emerged from flasks at the side of the stage.

Some people have called some of my performances Dada-esque, and they've

certainly always flown in the face of logic, leading me to think...

have I've been subconsciously influenced? Hmmm.

Maybe.

- Hmmm.
- Hmmmmm.

But where did all this Dadaism begin?

Que es Dada?

Dada - a word chosen at random from a French-German dictionary.

"Yes, yes," in Romanian.

A hobby horse in French.

Whatever the case, it all began 100 years ago in an unlikely place.

CUCKOO!

It wasn't in Berlin

or Paris,

or any of your usual hotbeds of Bohemian outrage. No.

The first artists to scare the hell out of the Establishment

launched their revolution here in, of all places, Zurich.

SWISS YODELLING SONG PLAYS

When you think of Zurich,

the last thing you think about is a radical, anarchic art movement.

What you might think about is cheese, clocks,

or Swiss Army knives.

But radical art movements? No.

But it was exactly that "There's nothing to see here"

reputation, that staying in neutral whilst their neighbours were all

fighting to the death that made Zurich the breeding ground for Dada.

In 1916, Europe was tearing itself apart, and some wanted

no further part in the madness and destruction they saw around them.

Amidst the violence and upheaval of the First World War, artists, poets

and freethinkers from both sides of the conflict gathered here in

Zurich to avoid the horrors of the battlefront.

MUSIC: Boogie Stop Shuffle by Charles Mingus

It was a city of exiles, and among them a group of unlikely

revolutionaries formed a bizarre protest movement - Dada.

In a world where governments created carnage and the normal order

had become nonsensical, the Dadaists felt the only appropriate

artistic response was to be truly and deliberately absurd.

And like all the best world-changing movements,

Dada began here in a dirty, dingy underground drinking hole.

With nothing more than the humble dream of selling extra

sausages and beer, the proprietor of this place sanctioned a cabaret.

Little did he know what he was letting himself in for.

The Cabaret Voltaire, still here 100 years on, kick-started

a movement that would wreak havoc across Europe and beyond.

- So, welcome, Jim, to Cabaret Voltaire...
- Thank you, Adrian.

- ..the birthplace of Dada.
- Cheers.

So, how did the Cabaret Voltaire start here, then?

Hugo Ball, who was a writer and a director in the theatre in Munich,

and Emmy Hennings who was a singer in cafes and bars,

they came here in 1915 and they were hired in

a cabaret just down the street, and after a while they thought,

"We should have our own cabaret."

They send out an invitation to artists.

Was there any kind of direction,

or it was just "Do whatever you want to do?"

Today, one would say it was an open stage.

- A free-for-all.
- Yeah, free-for-all.
- Yeah.

So, the Dadaists mobilised themselves for war,

but theirs was a battle against reason itself.

BRAIN WHIMPERS LIKE A DOG

Hugo Ball appeared in a bizarre bishop's outfit.

Romanian poet Tristan Tzara cast a Maori tribal spell.

Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber improvised a dance, wearing

a cardboard mask.

And a dozen balalaika players turned up.

The German poet Richard Huelsenbeck snapped a riding whip, shouting...

..and was joined by Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco to perform

in German, English and French all at the same time.

Sounds like a great show.

But a bit of a shock for the locals.

What sort of people did they attract in here, then?

- People who come to drink beer and eat sausages and...
- And absinthe.

- ..and absinthe, yeah.
- Yeah.

And they didn't come to see somebody talking about art or reciting poems.

- Yeah.
- Basically they had to be better than the absinthe

or better than beer and sausages.

This really reminds me of where I started off.

- I started off in a pub in Southeast London...
- Yeah.

..which was about the same size as this, the same layout,

and it was the same kind of thing.

- I used to get people out of the audience...
- Yeah.
- ..and say, "Do you want to do something?"

And it'd be a different show every week, and it was just, like,

strangely so similar.

So, did you have some absinthe at that time, maybe, and that's why...?

- Didn't have absinth, no. We just had lager.
- Lager.

THEY LAUGH

For Hugo Ball, language had been hijacked by the warmongers

who twisted words to justify their violent acts,

so out went words and in came some unusual poetry.

A lot of these words, they're made up, aren't they?

- Bloiko - I could say that in my accent. Bloiko.
- Bloiko.

That's nice, yeah.

- Ogrogoooo. What is it, the umlaut? There's an umlaut.
- Ogrogoooo.

- Ogrogoooo.
- Ogrogoooo.

What's this? Bulomen.

I think you can probably get that in a face cream.

ADRIAN LAUGHS

Some of those words may feel a bit familiar.

Uvavu.

Well, look, the audience is in and we're ruining it for them,

really, by still being here, so we should make a dramatic entrance...

- Yes.
- ..very soon.

'Tonight I'm going to be re-staging one of the founding moments

'in the history of Dada, here at its birthplace.

'For Hugo ball's most iconic performance,

'he wore his most outlandish outfit.'

So we'll try and fit Jim into Hugo's costume.

JIM LAUGHS

- Pull it off.
- OK.

You misjudged my bulk.

'There's a few serious faces in the audience.

'God knows what they're going to make of my transformation into Hugo Ball.'

How's that?

- The words don't make any sense.
- I know.

- LAUGHTER
- There's only one word.

- Don't try and understand, just...
- I'm not going to.

- ..go with the flow.
- Right, start, because my specs are falling off my nose with the sweat.

Thanks. LAUGHTER

Gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori.

Gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban.

Elifantolim brussala bulomen brussala bulomen tromtata.

Velo da bang band affalo purzamai affalo purzamai lengado tor.

LAUGHTER

I'm getting lost.

Gaga di bumbalo bumbalo gadjamen.

Gaga di bling blong.

Gaga blung.

APPLAUSE

I'm collapsing.

Take this off. LAUGHTER

Thank you. And there we are.

Um...

What was that? LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

- His outfit was ridiculous.
- Yeah.

JIM LAUGHS

- I'm not knocking it at all.
- OK.

Oh, I'm right on it.

If he's there, doing his poetry in his magic bishop's costume,

he's already got a congregation, so he's begun a religion.

Yeah. And so that's why all these people come here, like a pilgrimage.

- And what a great shrine.
- Yeah.
- What a fantastic place.

- If you've got to have a religion, I'm going to be in here.
- Yeah.

'Hugo Ball wrote that, "Everyone has been seized by an indefinable intoxication.

' "The little cabaret is about to come apart at the seams and is

' "getting to be a playground for crazy emotions." '

Are you following me?

Just five months after it opened, the cabaret closed,

but Dada was just beginning.

In July 1916, Hugo Ball delivered the first in

a series of speeches announcing the Dada Manifestos.

These speeches parodied the more grandiose written manifestos

of the time.

Dada is a new tendency in art. How does one achieve eternal bliss?

By saying Dada.

How does one become famous? By saying Dada.

A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that

clings to this accursed language,

as if put there by a stockbroker's hands,

hands wrought smooth by coins.

Dada is the heart of words.

So, what were they doing?

Let's say, with the poetry, the meaningless, pointless,

senseless words within the poetry,

was it a reaction against the meaningless, senseless,

pointless war that was surrounding them?

Or were they just trying out something new and having fun with it?

I don't know.

Do you know?

In neighbouring Germany, life was becoming increasingly

desperate as the war drew to a close,

and nowhere was this more so than in Berlin.

This devastated city would provide the setting for Dada's new

incarnation as the German poet Richard Huelsenbeck returned home from Zurich.

Richard Huelsenbeck wound up the crowd,

claiming the Zurich Dadaists were pro-war.

"And Dadaism is still pro-war today.

"Things are still not cruel enough."

In Berlin, Club Dada would unleash a fiercely political rage.

The First International Dada Fair shook Berlin with its

shocking satire of the German Establishment.

And it didn't just tease the Establishment -

it mercilessly mocked the powers that be.

John Heartfield hung a dummy from the ceiling dressed in German

military uniform and with a pig's snout for a face.

And Otto Dix showed veterans disabled by war injuries.

These artists took genuine risks,

and many were arrested for their actions.

But in the male-dominated world of Berlin Dada, Huelsenbeck, Heartfield

and Dix met their match in Hannah Hoch.

MALE VOICES SCREAM More than holding her own at the art fair,

Hoch satirised the entire German Establishment with her

masterpiece, Cut With The Kitchen Knife,

pioneering a radically subversive new artform - photomontage.

Dada's ground-breaking visual techniques would have a huge

impact on Neville Brody, one of the pioneers of modern graphic design.

His interest in Dada has seeped into his cutting edge art

direction for The Face magazine and his iconic post-punk sleeve

designs for bands like, you guessed it...

Cabaret Voltaire.

Neville, here we've got an early bit of photomontage by Hannah Hoch.

That's the Kaiser, isn't it?

So, this is his moustache here.

Well, this is what I like about it, yeah. Oh, it's two wrestlers.

Well, you've got little Hannah Hoch down here,

this tiny head is a kind of signature.

And then these are the countries where women had the right to

vote at the time.

This is the first real kind of powerful use of photomontage

as a real tool of subversion.

Why was it? Was it because you'd got photos in newspapers?

The free access of, like,

printed photographs meant that someone like Hannah Hoch could come

in, cut it out, combine it all and create a completely new narrative.

So this is a whole new way of looking.

- Like a big political cartoon as well, isn't it?
- Yeah.

This was shocking to the bourgeoisie.

It was deliberately non-aesthetic. It's not pretty.

And this is something that we've seen a lot since.

You know, punk, Jamie Reid, the Sex Pistols covers.

Punk hijacked Dada's use of photomontage as

a weapon of subversion,

from Jamie Reid's Sex Pistols covers to Linder sterling's feminist

artworks and sleeve designs for bands like the Buzzcocks.

But punk is only the most obvious child of Dada.

'Club Dada's striking visuals extended to magazines and journals.

'I've brought along a copy of the first Dada publication,

'and I've got a feeling this is going to be right up Neville's street.'

What is this?

This is coming directly out of the photomontage approach,

but now it's typomontage.

- Yeah, so it's using everything.
- This is really stunning.

It's an amazing piece of freeform typography.

This really was ahead of its time.

Just looks incredibly modern.

There was a lot of punk stuff that was done that looked like this.

- A lot of art in the '60s and 70s had this feel, and the '50s.
- Yeah.

And this had a big influence on my work, directly - the idea of going

off-grid, nothing lines up, it's all at an angle,

yet it has so much energy.

- It is completely haphazard.
- Yeah.

I actually remember I did a whole record cover where all the type was

at angles and the printer helped me by straightening them all up again.

He said, "I've fixed it for you now, young man."

This is beautiful, though, isn't it?

It's gorgeous, just an extraordinary piece.

Makes me want to give it up - it's all been done, really, hasn't it?

JIM LAUGHS

'A lot of today's generation of graphic designers think

'they're nicking ideas from Neville Brody, but what they don't realise

'is that some of the freshest looking magazine layouts date back to Dada.'

While Hannah Hoch and others were busy setting the agenda

for 20th century culture,

one lone wolf managed to grab all of the world's media attention.

Architect Johannes Baader was in his own Dada universe.

He called himself Super Dada, or Dada Chief,

and announced himself as President Of The Earth.

No ego problems there, then.

On April Fools' Day,

he warned the district of Berlin that Dada forces were on

their way, and 2,000 people were there to fend off the Dada invasion.

When the time came, he wrote his own obituary but announced his

resurrection the following day.

Richard Huelsenbeck warned,

"Watch out for Baader, who has nothing to do with our thoughts.

"He has compromised Dada in Berlin to such an extent with his

"idiocies that I can't even get a small item into the press."

MUSIC: Let's Dance by David Bowie

According to one of the Dada gang, "Dada was a dancing epidemic

"with simultaneous beginnings in different parts of the world."

In Zurich, Dada had taken a hammer to language.

In Berlin, it attacked the political Establishment.

And now, in New York, Dada took aim at art itself.

JAZZ PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

Marcel Duchamp, the king of conceptual art,

forced the grand old guardians of the art world to ask

themselves a question they hadn't had to think about before.

"If you put a toilet in art gallery, does that make it art?"

And, "Should I start stroking my beard yet?"

Duchamp caused scandal by presenting a urinal signed "R Mutt"

to the board of the Society For Independent Artists.

It was rejected and the story went in Dada journals like The Blind Man.

It was just one in a series of ready-mades -

everyday objects exhibited as art -

a closed window,

a snow shovel,

a bottle rack,

and a bicycle wheel.

And Duchamp provoked the rage of the art establishment still

further by defacing an old master.

A copy at least.

He called the work Elle A Chaud Au Cul,

which in French sounds just like,

"She's got a hot ass."

For the Dadaists, this series of provocations was enough for

Duchamp to gain entry into their club, whether he liked it or not.

Artist Cornelia Parker has made art out of everyday objects herself,

but not without flattening them first with a steam roller.

She's my kind of artist.

And, for Cornelia, Duchamp, the reluctant Dadaist,

has been a lifelong inspiration.

Was Marcel Duchamp a Dadaist?

He was a Dadaist by default, I think.

The toilet...R Mutt's toilet, that's the thing that everyone knows,

- isn't it?
- R Mutt's toilet, yeah, I suppose you introduce the idea of

anything you just go and buy in the shop becoming an art object.

- And he did, and he caused a big stink.
- He did.

The idea of putting that into a salon where you're supposed

to put accepted work seemed to be what it was all about,

really, more than the object itself.

A lot of things just started with him,

because he was just up for anything.

Duchamp sort of opened up this seam, you know,

in kind of art that was kind of...everything was quite

stable and quite...progressing nicely,

but he'd just kind of create this big fissure, you know, this

fault-line that allowed other people just to be completely maverick.

Duchamp's idea for the readymade has inspired generations of

artists since,

and at the time inspired a collaboration with artist and

photographer Man Ray.

This is a fantastic photograph by Man Ray of Duchamp's

half-finished sculpture which was called The Large Glass.

He was allowing dust to accumulate on it,

because he wanted to incorporate the dust into the piece,

and I think he left a note for the cleaner, cos

he had a cleaning lady, saying, you know, "Don't touch, dust breeding."

- Did Man Ray come round to his house and then...?
- Spot it and like it?
- And Marcel said,

"Here, have a look at this, look at all this dust I'm breeding here."

And he says, "We'll just take a picture of it, shall we?"

- I'm sure it went something like that.
- I bet it is, yeah.

I think some of the best art is serendipitous.

- I quite like the idea of, you know, negligence becoming art.
- CORNELIA LAUGHS

Yeah. And have you been influenced by Dada?

I'm very influenced by Duchamp. I think he's, most probably, if

I had to pick one artist to say that he's had the most influence on me.

Yeah.

Dada managed to be really infantile and outrageous but at the

same time made people think about things afresh.

I'm off with Cornelia to stage our own Dada intervention.

MUSIC: Da Funk by Daft Punk

It'll pay tribute to both the politics of Club Dada in Berlin

and the irreverence of New York Dada.

It's taking us to Bond Street, where war leaders

Churchill and Roosevelt hold court.

Let's see who gets arrested first.

Do you think I'll get arrested... I'm more likely to get arrested with balaclavas?

I think you'll get more arrested than me. THEY LAUGH

- Here are the boys.
- Right, so, are you ready?
- Yeah.

There's my Dadaist act for the day.

- That's great, don't you think?
- Yeah.

It looks really menacing.

Shall we leave them on for a couple of minutes to see what people think?

'I think Cornelia's gone for political Dada -

'she's made them into terrorists.'

The police don't seem to have noticed yet.

'Right, now it's my turn to give these old geezers

'a 21st century face-lift.

'I'm thinking absurdo-Dada is more my style.'

MUSIC: I've Told Every Little Star by Linda Scott

'That should bring them down to scale.'

- There.
- That's great, I love it.

These need you on, darling.

I think I'll go on here.

Oh!

- What does it mean then?
- What does it mean?
- What have we done?

Well, this is almost...well, it's 100 years after Dadaism,

- so this is...
- Is it a student prank?

- I think it's a student prank...
- It kind of feels like it.

It is a student prank, isn't it?

I liked your balaclavas, I think, best.

- Did you?
- Yeah. It was more of a striking effect.

It was slightly more edgy. People enjoy this one more, I think.

- Mine was most probably a bit more like...
- SIREN WAILS

..you know, like Pussy Riot or something.

- Do you think so?
- Yes.

Here come the coppers.

- What should we do - just leave it there?
- Well, we could.

Should we just walk off and leave it?

I suppose the whole legacy of Dada means that people

have been defacing statues for a long time, haven't they?

Usually the traffic cone is the favourite one.

Now you've got Banksy.

It's not just being cheeky. No. CORNELIA LAUGHS

No, it's a bit more, I don't know,

it came out of a more political time, didn't it?

For some reason I always thought Dadaism was

a little less benign than Surrealism.

'Well, that's its brilliance for me.

'Dada can be the provocative dangerous artform Cornelia is

'drawn to, but it's also the original inspiration for mindless

'student pranks.'

Back in Zurich, Tristan Tzara, who we last saw casting a tribal spell

at the Cabaret Voltaire, was taking Dada in a radical new direction.

With new publications springing up by the second,

Dada's next target was the world of mass communication.

Tzara planned to trick the papers with a fake press release.

Tzara was using Dada's subversive energy

to mock the new media culture.

NEWS JINGLE PLAYS

There was a pistol duel yesterday on the Rehalp near Zurich, between

Tristan Tzara, familiar founder of Dada, and Dada painter Hans Arp.

Four rounds were fired and, in the fourth exchange,

Arp was slightly grazed on his left thigh.

Armando Iannucci.

How do you respond to this?

- Well, this is literally news to me.
- Yeah.

- I'm going to put the hands down.
- Yeah, I'm going to stop doing this.

This was an article,

this was written by the Dadaists and sent out

to various publications and newspapers, and was printed.

It was all made up. It was fake.

And that is something that is very contemporary,

because nowadays, you know, there's so much,

you know, 24-hour media and newspapers that have websites

- that need filling, so if you sent them a press release now...
- Yeah.

..it will appear as a story, even though it's word-for-word

quoting the press release that you sent out.

I mean, what Dada is saying is that something that sounds very

serious and true might not be serious and might not be true.

I remember, about 20 years ago, we did a show called On The Hour, which

was like a false news programme, but we actually did a...we made a report

about an abattoir where the cows were actually rising from the dead.

I remember it.

..and it nearly got on the Today programme.

We submitted it as from a Bristol reporter for BBC Bristol,

and it was all lined up,

and John Humphrys had written his introduction and everything,

and we came seconds away from it being played live.

Armando Iannucci has made an art out of Dadaist manipulation with

shows like The Day Today.

News.

London Transport say they may have to close the Underground

system due to an infestation of horses.

A report described the conditions in the equine plague as

"like an abattoir in a power cut".

To inspire other would-be Dadaists, Tristan Tzara published

a set of instructions on how to tear up newspaper articles and

reassemble them.

Take a newspaper. Take some scissors.

Choose from this paper an article.

Next, carefully cut out each of the words that make up this

article and put them all together in a bag.

Shake gently.

Next, take out each cutting, one after the other.

Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.

- OK.
- Right, so tip it out.
- Right.

So, let's...

This is the way they've fallen out.

"We're updating squeaky-voiced felt."

Hang on.

"The Cumberbatch appeared correct where cardboard catchphrases,

"occasionally sometimes correct," it says.

- Which kind of sums up random words.
- Yeah.

I think what they were beginning to explore was that idea that,

you know, we take so much of what we're being told for granted.

We're seeing it as the voice of authority and infallible,

- and they're saying it's not, really.
- Yeah.
- It's just words.

Thank you, thank you.

We've been recording a music video, and it goes like this.

# I'm hardcore and I know the score

# I am disgusted by the poor

# And my chums matter more because we are the law

# And I've made sure we're ready for class war. #

Cut-up, today, is such a prevalent form.

Deconstructing what you think of as true and telling you it's just,

you know, it's just an assembly of information which you could

put out in another combination.

Any source of any information can be cut and connected...

- But this is a random combination.
- Yeah.
- That's the difference.

I think what's happening now is people are trying to do

something more coherent with it.

So this is Tristan Tzara's unpatented idea,

- but it's led to fridge magnet poetry.
- Fridge magnet poetry.

And it's led to the whole of the internet, which consists

mostly of people cutting up bits of film and television.

The idea that we can all reedit -

one day this is how all programmes will be made.

That's great. Thank you.'

THEY CHUCKLE

DRAMATIC NEWS SHOW MUSIC

Dada poets and artists jumped on the creative opportunities

provided by cut-up, using the process for more than just satire.

Sometimes, a painting doesn't go the way you want it to go.

Damn you, fine artwork!

And this happened to artist Jean Arp, who was so frustrated,

he ripped up the painting and let the pieces land on the floor and

where they landed, he decided that

this was exactly what he wanted

in the first place.

That's not bad, actually. It's pretty good.

And Arp's wasn't too bad either.

Hello. Yes. Hello. Thank you. Yes.

This Dadaist principle of tearing everything up re-emerged in

'60s counter culture and nowhere more so than with

William Burroughs, who made an art out of chance happening with

his fragmented poetry, tape cut-ups, and even randomly reassembled films.

Hello. Yes. Where are we? Hello. Yes.

Hello. Yes.

Burroughs' artistic experiments would trigger

a new wave of cut-up in the second half of the century, passing on

his Dadaist technique to musicians, from Paul McCartney to David Bowie.

What I've used it for more than anything else is igniting

anything that might be in my imagination.

I've tried doing it with diaries and things and I was finding out

amazing things about me and what I'd done and where I was going.

And a lot of the things that I'd done, it seemed that it would

predict things about the future, or tell me a lot about the past.

I don't know, let's see what happens.

# I'm an alligator

# I'm a momma-papa... #

From our pop stars to our counter cultural heroes,

we're all a little bit under the influence of Dada.

In 1919, the Dada epidemic hit Cologne.

Each time it spread, Dada mutated and evolved.

Zurich Dada had introduced absurdist nonsense, Berlin Dada had targeted

the political establishment, and New York Dadaists sent up the art world.

Now, in Cologne, it was all about shock for shock's sake.

A Cologne publication called the Berlin Dadaists

counterfeits of Dada for their strongly held beliefs.

It claimed, they can neither shit nor pee without ideologies.

What Cologne Dada lacked in politics, it made up for in anarchy.

The Dada early spring exhibition incensed audiences with an

entrance via a public urinal of a beer hall and on the way in,

the public were showered with obscenities.

BLEEP. BLEEP. BLEEP.

Audiences were so incensed that they destroyed artworks in fits of rage.

And Max Ernst, the leader of Cologne Dada, actively encouraged

this destruction, displaying a sculpture with an axe attached.

The police said, "Enough is enough!" and closed down the show.

To find out what all this anarchy and destruction was about,

I'm going to meet Michael Landy,

one of the mischievous Young British Artists who introduced

Dada's shock tactics to a new generation in the '90s.

Michael is best known for destroying all of his possessions

in the name of art.

Hello?

And judging by the look of his house,

he hasn't replaced many of them since.

DRAMATIC WESTERN STYLE MUSIC

In Cologne, Max Ernst had a wooden sculpture with an axe

attached to it, so that they could destroy it.

- Oh, yeah.
- What do you know about that?

Destruction in art has kind of, like, a long history, really.

And I think Dada was like, it brought, like, destruction...

It's not necessarily nihilistic, it can also be creative.

Yeah.

Picasso talks about having, like, every time you make a painting,

in a sense, it's a kind of mini-destruction.

You know, you've got to take things apart to recreate, in a sense.

You've got to take the previous generation apart, in a sense.

You've got to almost, like, dismiss what they do and kind of

recreate yourself with a whole new set of values.

Cos you did your destruction...

Yeah, I destroyed all my worldly belongings, yeah.

- Was it absolutely everything?
- At the time, yeah, at the age of 37.

And how did you destroy it?

We didn't get an axe to it or anything like that.

It was actually a quite methodical way of doing it.

So did you destroy your artwork as well?

Yeah, I destroyed my artwork, I destroyed my friends' artwork.

So would you say that was a Dadaist thing to do?

Yeah, in some respects, yeah.

I would say it's a pretty absurd thing to do.

Yeah, and it did get up people's noses because obviously

- people work their whole lives to acquire things, don't they?
- Yeah.

And there I was, destroying them all.

Michael Landy and his mates shocked the art world in the

'90s with the notorious Sensation exhibition.

There was Damien Hirst with his shark,

Tracey Emin with her unmade bed,

and Marcus Harvey with his portrait of serial killer Myra Hindley,

made with child handprints.

But while Cologne Dada had its show shut down by the police,

the YBA's just provoked a few headlines in the tabloids.

You were involved in the Sensation show, weren't you?

Hands up, I was, yeah.

I mean, Sensation is like a collection of Charles Saatchi's.

I mean, Dada is like...

They're a group of artists who create manifestos, you know.

They have like shared ideologies.

I think the only similarity would be the media.

Dada was being more provocative than I am and their audience is

very conservative. I mean, what people think of art is like

a nice landscape painting or a nice cherub in bronze.

They don't think, you know,

a mannequin with a light bulb on its head is art.

- Yeah.
- So they're trying to shock people, aren't they?
- Yeah, they are.

That's what they're trying to... Get up their noses and make them angry.

Yeah. So, any final thoughts on Dada?

I'd just like to thank Dada really for paving the way for people

like me to come along.

- Yeah. Thank you, Dada.
- Thank you, Dada.

HE CHUCKLES

I've brought a piece of artwork along with me for you.

- Do you know the history of me and artwork?
- I know, yeah.

It's one of my prized possessions.

- Well, now, you're making me feel bad. You can take it home.
- No.

No, I want you to do what you've got to do with it.

I could make you do it. I'd feel much better.

- You can follow my instructions.
- Have you got any ideas?

- Maybe show it to me first.
- So I'll go and get the plate.
- OK.

And then we'll talk about how to destroy.

- How we're going to get rid of it.
- Yeah, here it is.
- Aw.

It's a wedding plate for Bill and Cath.

William and you know...the royals.

So the classic way,

I suppose of destroying it is the Grecian way, isn't it?

- I like the idea of poking it off something.
- OK.

You could poke it off the top of my head.

- We could balance on top of my head and you could push it off.
- Yeah.

- You know where your broom...
- I've got a flat head. I'll go and get the broom.

- OK, I'll try and balance on my head.
- Yeah. Right, are you ready?

LOUD CLATTER

- Did that break?
- Yeah.

There.

- That looks nice now, I like that.
- Yeah, that looks nice.

- Yeah, I like that as well.
- I could sellotape that back together.

- Are you going to sweep that up and put it in a poitrine?
- In a latrine?

- In a poitrine, yeah. Not a latrine.
- Put a cloche over it.

- A what?
- A cloche.

THEY CHUCKLE

'When I do silly things in my comedy,

'it's a bit of throwaway fun,

'but when I do them with an esteemed Young British Artist, I am

'surely creating a piece of Dadaist performance art!'

You find me, several tenths of my way through this journey and

exploration into what is Dada.

I've spoken to several people,

all of which seem to have varying ideas about Dada.

Was it political, anarchic? Was it comedy? What was it?

It was probably all of those things and more.

But what I can say is since the beginning,

I thought I had quite a good idea about what Dada is.

I think I'm probably more confused now,

so I shall continue my journey and find out what exactly is Dada.

SQUEALING

UM!

To help me answer that question, I'm meeting the man who updated

Dada's absurdist style for my generation.

FANFARE

Now, where is he?

FANFARE

- Strangers meeting in the night.
- I never expected to see you here.
- No.

- Take a seat.
- What are you doing here?
- I don't know.

- What are you doing here?
- I don't know. A car brought me.

I know nothing!

Let's find out!

Well, Terry, what does Dada mean to you, if anything?

I've never seriously thought about what it means to me. It just is.

- Do you know what it is?
- Yeah. I do.

I think what was interesting, the fact that it was anti-war,

it was a reaction to the First World War,

a reaction to bourgeois society, and these very boring tastes.

I think the anger is what's interesting about it,

how they were angry about the world nightmare they were living in

and yet, you deal with it in different ways.

And it's the humour side that we always went for.

Is that what it was? Was there a war going on,

so we're going to have to have fun and lighten the situation?

Or you go absurd. You go totally Absurdist.

If we're in an absurd situation, a complete nightmare out there,

well, let's create nightmares and throw it back at society and

see if you can shake it up.

- That's a really good point cos it really was just madness.
- Yeah.

I mean, I left America because of the Vietnam War and all of

that and I realised I was more...

I was more Dadaist than I realised

because completely against the war, I hated the way society was

structured and behaving, and I wanted to make people laugh.

- Yeah.
- Bah-boom!

MUMBLING SINGING WAGNER

BLESSING IN LATIN

What interests me is how many artists that I've always been

either copying, admiring, or being influenced by,

were the Dadaists, and George Melly wrote a review of Python and

he referred to me as a product of Max Ernst. Wow!

- So you weren't aware before...?
- I was only aware of his paintings.

I wasn't aware of his collages.

This is a film by Hans Richter, who was a Dadaist.

Look at this.

It's called Ghosts Before Breakfast.

- The silly walk!
- It is, look. That's it. Isn't it?
- Yup!

So, who saw that then?

- Probably nobody.
- Is it just a coincidence?

But that's what I love about things, how coincidental things can be.

- Yeah.
- We were just doing it. We weren't aware of what we were doing.

There's a bubbling pot, isn't there? Where Dadaists pop out like

bubbles and they're not aware that they are being called Dadaists!

Yeah. I know.

I think it was easier when we were doing Python, certainly for me,

coming to this country, the categories are more clear.

You know, the bankers, City guys, pin stripe suits,

bowler hats, working class, look like working class,

the middle class was the middle class.

Now, I think it's harder to be Dadaist right now.

Maybe it's ripe for a new uprising of Dadaism.

I think it's really hard to get to grips with cos you can't find

what the enemy is.

You can't react against it cos it's so atomised now.

SWANEE WHISTLE

In the early '20s, with the war over,

the global outposts of Dada converged in Paris.

First, Tristan Tzara from Zurich,

then Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray from New York...

Oi, Marcel!

..and then, Max Ernst from Cologne.

A new supergroup was formed.

Paris Dada offered its groupies more spectacle and more sheer

silliness than anything that had gone before.

It was Dada with bells on.

BELLS SHAKE

HE HUMS FLORAL DANCE

By way of self-promotion,

the Dadaists plastered stickers across the city.

BELL RINGS AND DROWNS OUT SPEECH

Francis Picabia made a drawing on a blackboard and then erased it

at the exhibition.

And to announce the opening of a Man Ray exhibition,

the space was filled

with balloons and the Dadaists popped them as people came in.

Paris audiences were so outraged,

they threw tomatoes and raw meat at them.

Now, I'm meeting an artist who knows exactly how it feels to be on

the receiving end of groceries.

Martin Creed's Turner Prize-winning show,

The Lights Going On And Off, which consisted of the lights going

on and off, invited the question - is this art?

And prompted some gallery goers to throw eggs at the wall.

- So this is your studio?
- Yeah.
- Well, show us around?
- Well, so there's...

- These are paintings.
- Oh, yeah. I've heard about them.

- That's a bag.
- Yeah.
- That's a bag, that says...

That actually says "whatever".

- Oh, yeah.
- There's some boxes here.
- Yeah.

- What's this?
- A knitting thing with the stripes getting bigger.

- What's it going to be?
- No, that is what it is.

- Oh, is it?
- This is a pair of trousers

I've been working on.

- What are you going to do with them?
- Well, just erm...

- ..wear them.
- JIM CHUCKLES

- Wow!
- That is a hat.

- How does it look?
- Looks good.

Aye.

- What is that?
- That's a Panda. A Fiat Panda.

So what about Dada?

You got anything that's Dadaesque in here?

Er, I don't, well, I don't know about, I don't know,

- maybe a lot of it is because I think it's sort of a bit stupid.
- Yeah.

You know? I think that's...

- That's what Dada is.
- Aye, like being stupid.

But there's political meaning and then you've got to balance that

- with the daftness or the stupidness.
- Right, aye.

Cos I'd probably fall on the daft side.

I would go...I think I would definitely fall on the stupid side.

You'd be even further, right the other end!

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Cos I think it's like more, you know,

- it's more like life, cos life's stupid.
- Yeah.

'Like the Dadaists, Martin filled the gallery half full with balloons.

'His works are starting to feel rather familiar.'

- That was your idea, wasn't it? Balloons.
- I didn't know about that.

This is what I've been finding,

the Dadaists did have a lot of ideas for the first time.

- Yeah, it looks like it, aye.
- And, um...

- and then you had them later.
- Right!

THEY LAUGH

I'm just wandering about here.

I mean, who knows what they were really trying to do, those people?

- I don't know.
- I don't know.

No, I don't.

And I don't know either, but, aye, I don't know.

- I don't know.
- I don't know.

Well, there we are then, that's the answer to that, isn't it?

Is there any reason behind any of your stuff?

Maybe it's trying to do what you're not supposed to do.

When I did this film of people being sick,

and one of people shitting as well,

just cos it's a taboo of our, like, British society.

And are you allowed to go into a gallery and laugh your head off.

Yeah, well, I would have thought so, aye.

- That's what I encourage whenever I have my shows.
- Aye.

'Martin's invited me to join him in his latest nonsensical idea,

'blind painting.

'So I'm going to do a portrait with absolutely no idea

'what it's going to look like.'

- It is weird, isn't it?
- It is weird.

- I think I'm done.
- Yeah, I think I have.

- Right.
- So we're going to...

- What are we going to do, just show?
- Oh, aye, OK.

Whoa!

Oh, yeah.

THEY LAUGH

- Oh, God.
- Oh, it's dripping.

Put them down on here.

Aye. Don't want it to drip. Amazing.

So has this got anything to do with Dada?

I suppose it's just a new idea.

Maybe cos it's like trying to do it the way you're not

supposed to do it, cos you find that if you're going to do

- a picture of something you should...
- So it's getting rid of

- all conventions.
- ..at least look at what your...

I feel like, you know, if you try to control things

- it doesn't necessarily make them better, you know?
- Yeah.

This has got no bearing on anything.

In Paris Tristan Tzara achieved his dream by gathering together

all the Dadaists to form a movement, Movement Dada.

It was the culmination of all the nonsense of Dada,

and for a brief moment Dada was the talk of the town.

But for some, like Max Ernst and Man Ray, the nonsense was wearing thin.

They'd begun searching for meaning through dreams and the subconscious.

Man Ray famously took a metronome, cut out an eye from a photograph,

put them together and made a new work, Object To Be Destroyed.

I think I might have a go myself.

Connect and print. Is that what I do?

Enter the password.

Shove a little bit of light music on.

MUSIC: Left Bank Two by The Noveltones

There is something blurry happening.

Then you cut out an eye.

And then he stuck the eye on the metronome

and there...

he had a new work,

Object To Be Destroyed.

So with all the Dadaists all going off in different directions

there was nothing holding this movement together

and, what's more, egos were taking over.

So Tristan Tzara, right, he wanted to be the leader of the Dadaists.

"Oh, look at me, I want to be the king of the Dadaists!"

In fact they used to call him Tzar Tristan.

But soon Dada had rivals in the Paris art world,

including the French poet Andre Breton, and he was

getting up the noses of other poets as well, like Paul Eluard.

Dada was about to reach its bitter end in July 1923

at the Soiree Of The Bearded Heart.

So early on in the evening, Andre Breton takes offence at some

performer and whacks him with his cane and gets thrown out, then

a bit later on, just before Tristan Tzara's play The Gas Heart

is on, there's like a rumpus going on in the stalls.

Then who is it?

It's Paul Eluard, the poet. He demands to see Tristan Tzara,

so Tristan Tzara comes out, they have a pushing and shoving match

and then Paul Eluard lamps Tristan Tzara,

he goes down and that was it, you know, it was kind of all over

by then really, so we went off to the boozer to talk about it,

and had a right old laugh.

Dada had died a death.

But some Dadaists, like Max Ernst and Man Ray,

found another gang to join,

jumping ship to Andre Breton's new art movement,

Surrealism.

But I don't know if anyone really, really and honestly knew

what Dada was all about yet.

And to be honest, neither do I.

But perhaps if I look out on this historic city,

take in its atmosphere, I might get a feel for Dada

and finally get to grips with this contradictory movement.

No, Paris didn't do much for Dadaism,

and, to be honest, it's not doing a lot for me either.

I'm off.

Terry! Terry!

What is... What is Dada?

Come on, what is Dada?

- Leave me alone! Leave me alone!
- What is it?

- What is Dada?
- I'm not going to tell him, I'm not going to tell him.

What is Dada?

Everyone needs a shed to go to when all else has failed.

What is Dada?

What is Dada? What...is Dada?

- VOICE ECHOES:
- Eh, what do you reckon?

Turkey. Tutankhamen.

- Hello.
- What?

Moon River, wider than a mile.

Hello.

Hello.

Yes, Arthur Smith at your service here.

What exactly is Dada?

Dada is a virgin microbe that fills up all the space

that reason cannot with its convention.

Good, glad you sorted that out for me, then.

Yeah, I mean, in a sense, you know,

if you start trying to analyse it then you'll end up

disappearing up your own bottom, and it recognises that.

So some people reckon is political, some people think it's just

stupid absurdist comedy, or is it all of it? What is it?

You've got to defy convention and logic in order to amaze

and stimulate people, I suppose.

Dada gave a licence for people to be stupid and in some sense

it is the founder of modern comedy and you've definitely acted on

your licence to be stupid, and Vic and all your mates, so well done.

Thanks.

Well, I'm stuck here alone in my bar,

and you're stuck there alone in your bar,

and yet we're together, Jim, that's a kind of Dadaism all by itself.

That's beautiful.

'Right, where do I go from here?'

We're nearly at the end of our voyage, and have we discovered anything?

Yes, I think we have. I think we know a little bit more about Dada.

Do you know more about Dada? Do I know more about Dada?

I do, but do you?

I don't and you do.

And I think one thing that we have learned is that a bloke

from the BBC, that's me, sitting on a pedestal,

can't tell you what to think.

They'll put it all together in the edit anyway.

Dada is...

- Completely...
- Maverick...

- Deconstructing...
- This serious idea about...

- Art...
- It's just an assembly...

- Of artists who create...
- Art that was...
- Incredibly modern...

- Very...
- Coincidental...

- Free-form...
- Negligence...

- They were a bit stupid...
- And want to make people laugh...

- The spirit of Dada...
- Was about...

- A whole new set of...
- Extraordinary...
- Ideologies...

- They were angry about...
- Convention and...

- People being sick...
- It's like a big political...

- Shake it up.
- I would say it's pretty absurd...

- It just is...
- More like life...

- Nonsensical anyway...
- More provocative...

- Than beer and sausages...
- I'm sure it's something like that.

Thank you.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE