Dada in Paris
Description
As in Zürich and Berlin, Dadaism had a certain number of forerunners in Paris; but with the exception of Marcel Duchamp, these pre-Dadaists tended to be poets, writers, and editors rather than visual artists. In 1912, Arthur Cravan began publishing the review Maintenant, which continued until 1915. In 1916, Pierre-Albert Birot, himself a painter and sculptor, launched SIC, and that review took on considerable importance in wartime Paris. In 1917, Pierre Reverdy, in turn, created Nord-Sud, which directly foreshadowed what Parisian Dadaism would become: on the whole, a more literary movement than was found in the other cities where Dadaism flourished. In 1919, Francis Picabia moved from Barcelona to France, and brought his review 391 with him. The first issues, published in New York and Spain, had notable included insolent cover illustrations consisting, for example, of photographs of a ship propeller and electric light bulb captioned, respectively, "ass" and "American woman." Picabia's love of provocation and nonsense found expression in his literary pamphlets as well as in such visual works as the painting Straw Hat (1921-1922, Paris, Musée national d'art moderne) with its casual declaration: "M... pour celui qui le regarde." The work was refused at the Salon des Indépendants. From the same period, Picabia's Dance of Saint Guy (Paris, Picabia estate) consists of nothing but strings stretched across an empty frame and little pieces of cardboard bearing scandalously rediculous messages like "Dance of Saint Guy" and "Tobacco Rat." In much the same vein, the artist published an ink spot in 391 and captioned it "The Blessed Virgin;" on another occasion, he presented a bill as a drawing supposedly illustrating a text by Tzara. --http://www.peak.org/~dadaist/English/Graphics/dadaparis.html [Sept 2004]