seainsideme

   The artists of the Dada movement had become disillusioned by art, art history and history in general. Many of them were veterans of World War I and had grown cynical of humanity after seeing what men were capable of doing to each other on the battlefields of Europe. Thus they became attracted to a nihilistic view of the world (they thought that nothing mankind had achieved was worthwhile, not even art), and created art in which chance and randomness formed the basis of creation. The basis of Dada is nonsense. With the order of the world destroyed by World War I, Dada was a way to express the confusion that was felt by many people as their world was turned upside down.

http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/dadaism.htm

“In the war [at the machine factory at Wülfen] I discovered my love for the wheel and recognized that machines are abstractions of the human spirit.”

—Kurt Swchitters

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“I want to see an elephant hunt down a man for the sole purpose of collecting his teeth, while a chorus of typewriters sings songs that praises the bananas for their wisdom, leadership, and their high levels of potassium.” 

— Jarod Kintz (I Want)  

“To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.” 

— Marcel Duchamp

“No more painters, no more writers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no more republicans, no more royalists, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more Bolsheviks, no more aristocrats, no more armaments, no more police, no more countries, enough of these imbecilities, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more” 

— Louis Aragon (Aragon, de dada au surrealisme, papiers inedits 1917-1931)

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Art has nothing to do with taste. Art is not there to be tasted.’
—Max Ernst

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‘I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.:
—Marcel Duchamp

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‘Dada is like your hopes: nothing
like your paradise: nothing
like your idols: nothing
like your heroes: nothing
like your artists: nothing
like your religions: nothing’
—Francis Picabia

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In those days we were all Dadaists. If the word meant anything at all, it meant seething discontent, dissatisfaction and cynicism. Defeat and political ferment always give rise to that sort of movement.

We held Dadaist meetings, charged a few marks admission and did nothing but tell people the truth, that is, abuse them. The news spread quickly and soon our meetings were sold out, crammed with people wanting to be scandalized or just after fun.

Between insults we performed ‘art,’ but the performances were as a rule interrupted. Thus hardly would Walter Mehring begin to rattle away at his typewriter while reciting some piece or other of his own composition, when Heartfield or Hausmann would come out from behind the stage and yell: ‘Stop! You’re not trying to bamboozle that feeble-minded lot down there, are you?’ “
—George Gros

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In 1999, ARTnews magazine named him one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century, citing his groundbreaking photography as well as “his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage,assemblage, and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art” and saying “Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its ‘pursuit of pleasure and liberty,’”—Man Ray’s stated guiding principles—”unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would.