The Prospects or the End of Neo-Dadaism

Abstract

In this essay, Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Dada Club in Berlin from 1918 on, claims strong divergences between the historical Dadaism and the art movements after World War II. In this realm, he addresses the questions of the materiality and essential values of art, the rejection of the art market and institutions, and his disapproval of mimic gestures in the arts. This text is emblematic of Hausmann’s polemical tone and representative of his typically Dadaist roles as artist, art historian, and critic in the context of the 1960s.

Keywords:

• Dada
• Neo-Dadaism
• avant-garde
• historiography
• art market
• phonetic poetry
• photomontage
• readymade

Notes

1 Translator’s note: although strongly influenced by Dada and Surrealism, the Lettrist movement did not formally appear until 1945, when it was established in Paris by the Romanian poet Isidore Isou.

2 Translator’s note: the term “assisted readymade” was first coined by Duchamp himself.