Dadaism, the birth of Conceptual Art

Conceptual art was started by a group of artistic rebels (and yes I use the term loosely) off the back of World War 1. Artists were discontented with the war and the violence connected to it and also with the rigidity of art at the time, whether it was visual, literature, theatre or design. Painting was no longer good enough for the visual, people were getting bored.

Square dancing, you're doing it wrong

Dada burst onto the scene with a bang. Their art mainly for shock value, their pieces and ideas influenced many movements afterwards such as surrealism and shock art. Concept artists used visuals that were not before used in art. The first piece that really announced the scene was something rarely seen before anywhere but a men’s toilet. A urinal. Hung from the ceiling. In Tate Modern. Granted, the hung piece was a reproduction (the original hung in the artist Marcel Duchamp’s studio proudly, where only a seldom few would see it. Both were signed R Mutt (the piece was submitted under the pseudo name Richard Mutt) 1917. The piece and the reproduction were to revolutionise how we see art today.

It was torture for the guys with IBS

‘The Fountain’ changed people’s perception of art but also made people question the validity of the ‘Bathroom Appliance” as a piece of art. People either argued that it was art or that it was vile and tasteless. Remember though that this was at the start of the 20^th century, where people were still very prude. Dadaism was an anti-establishment movement; they had no leader but were an unorganized group of artists free from rules, a stark contrast to wartime Europe. They were artistic anarchists.

Marcel's kids HATED peek a boo

Concept art brings the question ‘Are ideas as important as representations?’ Could the idea that the urinal portrays, the lack of rules, the need to express themselves differently, the shock, just be shown in a painting? A piece is nothing without an idea, but what if the idea WAS the piece? Instead of trying to just paint an abstract piece, concept art gets people talking. It opened the way for artists to show their pieces in any other areas. This formed the way for land art and site-specific art, where the location was part of the piece itself. This can make for a lot of wonder and amazement, like the crop circles that were formed with just two guys, yet people still think of them as UFO landing sites.

I think he's just a cover... look at his HEAD!

Maybe on a more aggressive level, graffiti is derived from conceptual art. Blek le Rat, the French ‘street artist’ is famed for his stencils of rats around France and thereafter many other European countries. The Rats portrayed freedom, (rats can do what they want and go where they want) and the towns and cities were Blek’s canvas. Without the idea of conceptualism, and indeed, Dadaism, artists such as Blek le Rat and Banksy would not be able to express their art, nor would any pieces of graffiti that have a meaning (and aren’t just a name tag) have a place in society. We have a lot to thank Dadaism for.

“Dada:

An early-20th-century international movement in art, literature, music, and film, repudiating and mocking artistic and social conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd.”