.
We Dadaists are often told that we are incoherent, but into this word people try to put an insult that it is rather hard for me to fathom. Everything is incoherent… There is no logic… The acts of life have no beginning and no end. Everything happens in a completely idiotic way. That is why everything is alike. Simplicity is called Dada. Any attempt to conciliate an inexplicable momentary state with logic strikes me as a boring kind of game… Like everything in life, Dada is useless… Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates with the insistence of air into all of the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions.
Tristan Tzara, ‘Lecture on Dada’, 1922
Samuel Rosenstock, changed his name, moved to Zurich during World War I, and decided art was bullshit.
Dada. He founded it. 1916, Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. While Europe was tearing itself apart, trenches, gas attacks, millions dead for nothing, Tzara and his crew said fuck it. Fuck art. Fuck sense. Fuck meaning. If the world’s going to be insane, we’ll be more insane.
Nonsense poetry. Random words pulled from a hat. Performances that were deliberate chaos. Anti-art as protest. If civilization led to World War I, then civilization deserved to be mocked, destroyed, pissed on.
“Dada means nothing.” That was the point. The name itself was chosen randomly, pulled from a dictionary. Meaninglessness as rebellion.
1920: moved to Paris. Brought Dada with him. Staged provocations, scandalous performances. Art world hated it, which meant it was working.
Then André Breton showed up. Wanted to organize Dada, give it structure, turn it into Surrealism. Tzara said no. You can’t organize chaos. You can’t institutionalize anti-art. They had a legendary falling out. Breton punched him at a performance. The friendship was over.
Surrealism happened anyway. Breton got his movement. Tzara kept doing his thing, writing, agitating, staying true to the original spirit of Dada even when everyone else moved on.
Joined the Resistance during World War II. Anti-fascist to the core.
Buried at Montparnasse Cemetery in 1963. The guy who said art was bullshit, buried with all the artists.
Shot on infrared film in Cimetière du Montparnasse. Signed Limited Edition 17” x11” print of 10; stamped on verso. Professional black & white printing on Hahnemühle fibre-based Matt paper.