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August 16, 2006
MoMA Dada
Out of order and almost a week late I'm getting back to my exhibition reviews!
The Dada show at the Museum of Modern Art (already exhibited in Paris and Washington) is amazing. Wonderful. Splendid. Fun! I've been telling friends that absolutely everything I ever taught from Dada with one exception was there - they didn't have The Bride tripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even.* Yeah, yeah, Duchamp was thrilled when the glass broke the first time, but I bet Philadelphia never loans it out.
Still and all, they had amazing amazing stuff. I had more than one instance of scale shock - that feeling people who live with reproductions get when we turn a corner and see something smaller or bigger than we've always thought. Yes, we could read the fine print in the caption that gives the dimensions, but it doesn't always sink in. My strongest one at this show was Hannah Hoch's Cut with a Kitchen Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany. Somehow I'd always thought of it as about the size of a sheet of typing paper. Nope. Poster size. I was stunned. I went back to it two or three times.
I saw so many favorites! One from MoMA's own collection, Arp's Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, used to appear as an essay question on tests regularly when I taught 19th and 20th century regularly (yes, in the far-off Agnes Scott days when I was the pickup adjunct and taught whatever they wanted). The question usually went something like: Look at the work. Write down the i.d. information. {they were supposed to have memorized this one} Look at the work. Read the title. If you got the i.d. right, tell me what's Dada about it. They got bonus points if they compared it to Duchamp's 3 Standard Stoppages (which I didn't notice in the show - the exhibition was THAT big).
I have seen rotoreliefs from Duchamp, but they had a rotating machine (not illustrated anywhere I can find it) that made conical illusions. There was an axle mounted on a motor; sections of black and white something (glass? wood? I don't remember and have lost my notebook) mounted at intervals along the shaft. One stands in front and stares as it rotates and makes one perceive a cone! Great fun! And BIG! There was a whole Rrose Selavy zone (everything from the Man Ray photo to Why not Sneeze? - you know, the rediscovered arms of the Venus de Milo). He was every bit as brainy as we all think.
The craftsmanship of a lot of the work surprised me. Perhaps it doesn't make sense, but just because you're criticizing the world of high art it doesn't necessarily mean that you do sloppy work. There were some unpolished passages (Schwitters Merz pieces, anyone?) but in general these people really were serious about their craft. I was pleased to learn that.
I apologize for the links - the show is not well-illustrated online. For instance, the MoMA site has a link to some items from the show that are in the MoMA collection (the link says 'highlights), and there's something similar on the National Gallery version (down and on the right - you have to click on individual artist names). The site from the Paris version seems most interesting.
So why do I like Dada so much, I the medievalist? Well, it's because I'm not a classicist, however much I teach it. I prefer Romanesque sculpture to Gothic and Carolingian painting to Romanesque. I like conceptualism more than naturalism and firmly believe that the adjective 'slavish' should never be far away from the latter. Dada has its problems -- I'm not in favor of rebellion for the sake of rebellion, after all. I am in favor of rebellion against the religion of art -- whether that of the 19th century academy or the late 20th century blockbuster. And anyone who draws a mustache on the Mona Lisa, instead of turning her into a portrait of the Magdalen, is a friend of mine.
The show is open for less than another month - so hurry! I'd go again if I were in NYC.
*now here's CRAZY. The Philadelphia Museum doesn't have the Bride Stripped Bare available online - but they do have the 1913 Bride. Don't believe me? Go here and search for yourself.
From the same trip - The Cloisters, part I
- Making discriminations at the Frick
- Zaha Hadid, Famous Architect, at the Guggenheim
Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 16, 2006 12:02 PM