Tzara - Melissa Mendoza

While reading Tristan Tzara’s work, Dala, I found myself very confused to find my footing about what his content was about. An overall theme I managed to pick up on was on the power, and sometimes lack of power visual artwork may have. He writes, “he gave his reliefs representational names, but they did not represent anything,” (Pg. 44). Out of the many confusing statements and lengthened paragraphs, I found this particular quote to be the most concrete example of nonsense and contradictions. Tzara’s writes that the reliefs were given names that represented something. Yet, he also quickly states that the names do not represent anything. Right off the bat, there is a paradox he is trying to present, which I believe could deal with how society tries to give everything meaning and representation. If this were the case, I can see how Tzara introduces these reliefs are being potentially representational but in his mind, wanting them not to be seen as a symbol for something else. The contradiction is presented by his choice of the adjective “representational” because if he were trying to say the names did not represent anything, he could have said meaningless, or not representative names.

I think that the paradox presented is that often we, as a society, look to find meaning in everything, otherwise it can be seen as less important or significant. Nonsense in our social world, often has the connotation of meaningless, therefore pointless and unnecessary. The point Tzara could be trying to make is that not everything that is nonsensical, should be considered bad; and not all art that is representational is unworthy. The statement called our attention initially because it was about to give more meaning to the reliefs’ names. The reliefs were about to be given deeper meaning, but Tzara takes it away almost instantly.

Tristan Tzara’s choice of language calls the reader’s attention by presenting them with possibility, yet the point he could be trying to make is that the reliefs are important no matter whether or not they are symbolic or representational of something else. If Tzara were to not have included the first part of the sentence, the reliefs would have been ignored or less carefully thought about. But because, the author made it a point to give them significant, without giving them a specific representation, Tzara is able to criticize how society views art. And to an extent, criticize the viewings of art in nonsensical literature. This is a very short sentence with a lot of potential meaning, because it is paradoxical. Contradictions can be very messy to analyze because they are not logical statements. This can raise the question of why introducing one statement and introducing the opposite argument, as opposed to simply stating one or the other. I think the point the author was intending to make in this particular example is whether or not the relief’s names had representations behind them or not matters. It may not necessarily matter whether they solely do or don’t, but what might matter is that the reliefs could be somehow important to note. Otherwise, why talk about them at all?