Neo-Dada
Era: post-industrial era
Related: Postmodernism - Pop art - Fluxus - punk
People: Bruce Conner - Richard Hamilton
A Definition
Neo-Dada is an artistic movement of the 20th century, usually thought to have begun in the 1960s. Artists of this movement derive their conceptual heritage from earlier Dada artists, most importantly Marcel Duchamp. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast. It also patently denies traditional concepts of aesthetics. The leading artists in the Neo-Dada movement are Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Jim Dine. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Dadism [Sept 2005]
See also: USA - art - dada - pop art
Postmodernism as Neo-Dada
At the heart of postmodernism lies the assumption that most of the things that we take for granted are, in fact, simply illusions. Reality is not reflected within text, only text is reflected within text. There is no Truth beyond the experience of the text, and meaning is created every time the text is experienced. An author does not place meaning in the text, and his/her interpretation of the text is no more valid than any otherIn other words, meaning is arbitrary, relative, and subjective. Language is, in its own way, reality. What we refer to as reality is not knowable, and we live in the illusion that we are in touch with it. The age in which concepts have a relation to reality is over. Knowledge is only validated when it is referred to by second-level discourse .
With a slight variation in terminology, all of the above statements are exactly the same as the basic premises of Dadaism, a movement that took place in Europe over seventy years ago. Dada was an art movement that occurred primarily in Europe, beginning in Zurich. Although the endpoints are a bit fuzzy, it began around 1915 and lasted until about 1925, when many Dadaists joined the surrealist movement . Although primarily associated with visual art, Dada included writers, critics, and philosophers. --http://www.sociology.org/content/vol004.001/locher.html David Locher in Electronic Journal of Sociology (1999), Unacknowledged Roots and Blatant Imitation: Postmodernism and the Dada Movement