In this exhibition, South African
artworks from the 1960s to the present are exhibited alongside a
collection of artworks and publications by historical Dada artists. The
juxtaposition invites a fresh enquiry into South African artistic
production by highlighting some similarities in method, strategy and
imagery, between socially critical South African art and the art of Dada.
In Dada South? curators Roger van Wyk and
Kathryn Smith consider the legacy of socially critical and experimental
South African art in relation to the influence of Dada. Many people are
familiar with South African ‘resistance art’, produced in the late 1970s
to early 1990s, which deals with political subject matter in a direct way.
Dada South? is a chance to broaden this view to include art which
criticises and mocks any political and social forms and institutions. It
is also an occasion to reconsider the influence of non-western cultures on
Dada activities.
Dada was started by refugees and renegade
artists in Zürich, Switzerland, during World War One. Their provocative
activities were a reaction to the horror of the war, and the social and
political systems that were responsible for its unnecessary carnage. In
their attempts to break free from western European logic and aesthetic
traditions, including the idea of the artist as genius, Dada artists
embraced chaos and chance as part of their artistic strategy. They
experimented with poetry, craft and ritual performance, and were
influenced by the cultural practices and art of Africa and North America.
Dada has left a lasting legacy in contemporary art practice, particularly
the experimental art movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This is when Dada
ideas began to influence South African artists.
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The diverse legacy of Dada may be traced
in the production of a range of South African artists: from 1970s works by
Walter Battiss, Wopko Jensma, and Kevin Atkinson; to 1980s works by Lucas
Seage, Neil Goedhals and Jane Alexander; followed by the transition to
democracy period with works of Kendell Geers and Candice Breitz, among
others; and the many contemporary artistic positions by the likes of
artists such as Robin Rhode, Moshekwa Langa, Nicholas Hlobo, Christain
Nerf and Donna Kukama. The tendency for loose collective collaborations
that was prominent in the 1980s with initiatives like Possession Arts has
again resurfaced in collective groups such as Gugulective and Avant Car
Guard, all of which carry a trace of Dada.
This is a unique opportunity to view
South African works that carry the Dada influence together with a
selection of original Dada artworks and publications from prominent
European collections in South Africa for the first time. The exhibition
includes a rare collection of original collages by the prominent female
Dada artist, Hannah Höch, dating from 1918 to the 1960s. Other Dada
artists represented include: Marcel Janco, Sophie Täuber-Arp, Hans Arp,
Hans Richter, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Marcel
Duchamp and Man Ray.
International loans come from collections
including:
The Institute For Foreign Cultural
Relations, Stuttgart; Berlin Gallery, Landes Museum Berlin; John
Heartfield Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin; Goethe-Institut
Collection, Munich; Kunsthaus Zürich; Bellerive Museum, Zürich Museum of
Design; Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne collections, Paris;
De Stijl Archives, Netherlands Institute for Art History, Den Haag.
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