MoMA & Dada

Dada art emerged after World War 1. It is called anti-art because artists were outraged about the war and mocked everything that contributed to the war. 

Marcel Duchamp was a pioneer of Dada art. Duchamp began presenting everyday objects as art. The readymade defied the notion that art must be beautiful.  This changed my expectations of what art can be because it made me think about all of the creativity and thought that goes into making everyday objects- similar to the creativity and thought that might go into a painting or sculpture. 

Dada artists embraced the idea that anything can be art. They wanted to create anti-art to mock the war and created things by chance rather than planning their pieces out in advance.

Dadaists believed that the value of art lay not in the work produced, but in the act of making and collaborating with others to create new visions of the world.


Dadaists wanted to undermine the structure of their society which largely included the language. By symbolically cutting up the language so that someone could recognize the letters but no the meaning, they were able to represent their feelings on society.