Dada ser första världskriget i Berlin
En studie av kopplingen mellan George Groszs, Hannah Höchs samt Raoul Hausmanns visuella konst och första världskriget
The First World War had a definite impact on all of Europe, not to say the entire world. The domain of art was no exception. In Zürich, neutral Switzerland, a group of young creative intellectuals who shared a hostile approach towards the structure of the bourgeois society, with its non-democratic rulers and current nationalism which lead up to the war, united under the artistic movement we today call Dadaism. After the war Dadaism sprung up in several cities throughout Europe, among those Berlin. In Berlin Dadaism became a socialist weapon of propaganda, with its norm breaking artistic manifestations, against the camouflaged conservative government of the new Weimar republic. Their political and artistic struggle lasted until the mid-twenties, after that the gradually disintegrated. Reading the history of Dadaism some thoughts came to my mind. Dadaism emerged as a rebel against First World War and those responsible; still the movement lives on after the war had ended. What was the connection between Zürich-Dada and Berlin-Dada? Can you trace the First World War in Berlin-Dada expressions years after the end of the war? Examining three different works of art by major Berlin-Dadaists George Grosz, Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann, I hope to respond to those questions in a satisfactory manner and during the process draw some essential conclusions.