In his text, Richter provides the
reader with a clearer understanding of what Dadaism is exactly. There is a
great emphasis on the rejection of logic and lucidness that creates a
nonsensical quantity among the different dada forms. Richter highlights this
when he includes Hugo Ball’s poem, “O gadji beri bimba” in DADA: Art and Anti-art. In my opinion, and from my understanding of Dada, I believe
that this poem has numerous elements of Dada. The first few lines of the poem
read as: “gadji beri bimba glandridi
laula lonni cadori /
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa
laulitalomini gadji beri/ bin blassa glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim.”
While, reading it aloud, it is absolutely evident that
this poem was written more for phonetics than meaning itself. None of the words
used in the poem are defined to have meaning but we can still see that there is
a connection between them- a connection of sound. At first it is difficult to read the poem but not much
later, the words just seem to flow and roll off the tongue. There is also a
good bit of rhyme and alliteration that helps this flow. All in all, the words
give a very whimsical and foreign vibe. Some of the sounds resemble different
languages like Italian, Hindi, African, French, and even English. The diversity, and nontraditional style
of this poem is one of the greatest contributing factors of making this piece a
work of Dada. The unconventionality of “O gadji beri bimba” lies greatly in the
fact that it is a phonetic poem. Many poems that people then and even now
appreciate are those that have deep and remarkable meaning, however, here we
see that the beauty of the poem lies in the sound it.
Where as Richter has more of a
narrative and straight forward approach to the context of Dada, we can note
that Tzara takes on a different register. Tzara allows for his manifestos to be
a form of Dada itself and also discussing that understanding Dada is a form of
Dada. In DADA: Art and Anti-art, Richter
includes forms of Dada in his text to prove the nonsensical nature of Dada,
while Tzara evokes the use of contradictions to formulate his Manifestos into a
work of Dada as a whole. In his manifesto, he writes, “Freedom: Dada Dada Dada,
a roaring of tense colors and interlacing of opposite and of all contradictions,
grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE,” (pg 82). He considers that life is full of
inconsistencies and not as logical as people would like to believe. As such,
art should be reflected in the same way. Dada in an attempt move away from the
formulaic styles of art and find a new understanding of the world through
different art forms. This may be done through experimenting with sounds,
contridictions or performances.
I really enjoyed this post. I think the poem chosen with the gibberish words exemplifies what Dadaism is, which is going against convention and systems of language. Something interesting that was mentioned was that the gibberish words sort of resembled rag tag syllables and sounds from different languages, like possibly French or German or even Hindi. I think this also goes along with the idea of going against the system of language. The system of language, in my opinion anyway, only works if one is consistent with the language being used. It goes against convention to smush different sounds of languages together. To me this sort of exemplifies what surrealism is. Surrealism is the idea of fluid perception between reality and dreams or illusion. It is that juxtaposition of seamless transition from dream to reality that creates nonsense, as opposed to just going “against the grain” of conventionality of language.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I think this poem also exemplifies surrealism is because, in essence, it also shows fluidity between boundaries. Instead of blurring reality and dreams, the poem is blurring languages and sounds together. While to a average Joe on the street, if someone came up to him and spoke a sentence, half in English and half in Chinese, that average Joe probably wouldn’t understand. That goes against the conventionalism of conversational language and thus exemplifies Dadaism. However, if I heard that mix of Chinese and English, I would be able to understand the seamless of it all; I would be able to understand the whole idea of the sentence despite the mushing of the two languages. This is what I think what surrealism does.
So in a similar manner, I think this poem from Richter does possess a surrealist aspect. Going with the idea of the sounds and syllables are randomly picked from a number of existing languages, there is an element of surrealism, from on language syllable to another different language syllable, until “words” are created to make the whole poem.
While there is an appreciation for breaking the norm of language as in Dadaism, I think there is a beauty in the seamlessness of surrealism. I think only now am I able to appreciate the idea of surrealism more than before. I think surrealism in language, poetry, and art in general can be rather exquisite. While I think this poem exemplifies both Dadaism and surrealism, I don’t think I can say that all Dadaist work could have an element of surrealism. I mean does all Dadaism have a surrealist quality to them?
I agree with the above commentator's ideas about Dada and Surrealism. This makes sense, of course, as Dada was a pretty clear precursor to Surrealism. It is hard to say, however, whether or not all Dadaist works have "Surrealist" elements, because as we know, Dadaism (and Surrealism as well) encompass vast artistic movements that are comprised of many different (and sometimes opposing) philosophies and ideas.
ReplyDeleteI am particularly intrigued by the original poster's ideas about the difference between Tzara and Richter's writings on the philosophies of Dada. It does seem, in many ways, that Richter's Art and Anti-Art contradicts Tzara's Seven Dada Manifestos, as Richter does take something of a journalistic approach to the explanation of Dada. Richter employs a fairly clear narrative while Tzara just kind of "dumps" his ideas out onto paper in a disjointed, somewhat alienating-to-the-reader fashion. Richter does seem to care more that the reader understands exactly what he's saying, while Tzara seems to have a "here are my ideas, I'm gonna write them in a pretty unclear way, deal with it" attitude. This is interesting, however, because while Tzara rejects this "journalistic" approach to art (which is evidenced not only in the content of his manifestos but also the form), he still manages to communicate some pretty clear ideas to the reader. We know he rejects logic because he states this explicitly, and because he writes his manifestos in a way that eschews logic. So, again, I guess we just have an example of Tzara contradicting himself. If he really wanted to reject logic and the language "laid barren by journalism" (as Hugo Ball put it), he could have written all of his manifestos in total gibberish and just been like, "this is Dada." But his message I suppose is made more complex by his simultaneous employment and rejection of linguistic convention and straightforward narrative. His self-contradictions and scattered, cut-and-paste writing techniques are also indicative of Dada--so is Tzara's Seven Dada Manifestos a "more" Dadaist work than Richter's DADA: Art and Anti-Art? Again--Dada is full of contradictions and different artists' philosophies are often at odds with one another--so I guess we can't really say.