dadabloge is thirty-day blog soliciting, collecting and showcasing dada work on the internet for the entire month of June 2018.
The blog is inspired by Tristan Tzara’s ambitious anthology project Dadaglobe, which was
fated to be published at the peak of Dada in 1921 but was unfortunately
abandoned at the time. While the history of Dadaglobe is fascinating, published
along with most of the original material by MoMA in 2016, dadabloge is a vehicle for exploring how artists today interpret dada in not
only translating but transforming similar ideas to see what they might yield in
today’s time.
Unlike the mail art exhibitions during Fluxus,
as well as the circulation of work in Dada, dadabloge is born after the
internet facilitated dispersion of geographical borders. While it seems like we
are all a click away from each other, there is a perceptible distance (perhaps
greater than before) in artists’ practices. In its complicated relationship with
capitalist structures of operation, contemporary art seems to have resisted
collectivism of the kind that made movements like Dada and Fluxus possible
Hence, one of the first humble purposes of dadabloge might be a bringing
together of artists/creators with similar ideas without any omissions. dadabloge
is in this way, auto-curated by its willing participants; it is a collective
and not a clique.
The letter of solicitation for dadabloge
payed homage to Tzara’s original letter in its design and
included submissions in the categories of original writing, photo
documentation of art works, and links to video or sound work. A peculiar call
in Tzara’s letter for “a clear photo of your head (not body), which you can
alter freely, although it should retain clarity” has been retained, to continue
explorations in self-representation that was perhaps one of the most fruitful
discourses started by Dadaglobe and Dada at large. The structure (or lack
thereof) of the blog also remains true to Tristan Tzara’s original design to
remove ‘the editor’ and any other categorical distinctions between the works.
Encouraging free association as a form of reading, the blog invites you to
interpret the sequence of its contents.
Accompanying dadabloge will be
dadamobile - a month-long series of guerrilla performances at Farmers Markets
in Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts. Kicking off the first week, the Day de
Dada Art Nurses, Mary Campbell, Viv Vassar and Barbara Lubliner, performing a
set of scores along with free “Art Health” check-ups for the public (not
exclusively an art audience) will tie together techniques from the historic
fluxus and dada movements and bring the project into real (and fun) encounters
with the ‘praxis’ of everyday life. The subsequent two weeks will feature dada actions
both - new and not so new, international and local, performed by guests and
Mobius artists. The fourth and final
week of dadamobile will see a collaboration between sculptor (and Cabaret Voltaire
enthusiast) Edward Monovich and choreographer Nathan Andary entitled “Dadabex:
consequences of overconsumption and other modern tragedies” using masks of the alpine ibex created by Monovich and scores created
by Andary, performed by Monovich, Andary and collaborators Kat Minnehan and Thomas Mackie.
DADA!
dead or alive
dead or alive
Notes by Anisha Baid