About Me

Pennsylvania, United States
Born into a creative environment, artist father and inspiring mother, destiny began. Art is a face, a force, never absent, never silent. Possessing a vibrant, active, colorful mind, and the skills to create images is serving me well. Art is my confidante, voice, solution and salvation. Exposing my ideas, images, humor, sarcasms and statements, fertilizes the art within. Reaction to my creations evokes growth in both creator and viewer.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Dada....

Volume I, No. 1 A Little Bit of Background
[FINE PRINT DISLAIMER: I am far from being an academic, self-proclaimed expert, art historian, or author. The following is simply a collage of the many readings and musing I have had with reference to Dada. Future postings might, or might not, have historical reference. It is simply dependent on “What is Leslie thinking about today?”]

Post-World War I, “Little Magazines” emerged, filled with explosive ideas, images, poems, theoretical statements, slogans, collages, paintings, recordings of live performances and popular art.
These reviews were the Internet highway of the times. The term “Dada” literally means many things in many languages: French – “hobby horse,” Slavic – “yes, yes,” Yet it is said, Hugo Ball (1916) coined the nonsensical word randomly.
Dada’s birthplace was in Zurich, at the Cabaret Voltaire, a collaborative effort of Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, and Jean Arp. In 1917, the Dada Gallery was established. This short-lived movement died out around 1923 and around 1945 reappeared in the United States and Germany.
For me, the beauty of the movement captures the spirit of freedom of expression in a combination of visual, linguistic or auditory media an artist chooses
My adolescent development spanned the 60’s, therefore embracing the following quote was a natural for me: “Dada became a kind of iconoclastic godparent of the 1960s revolutionary movements, absorbed into what became known as the ‘historic avant gardes’ and emblematic of the attempt to re-engage art with life.” Introduction to The Dada Reader: A Critical Anthology, Edited by Dawn Ades (University of Chicago Press, 2006).
My intent is to have this space for you (my readers) and me to express everything that comes to mind. I plan to have fun here and hope you do as well.

Leslie

1 comment:

Jeannepaints said...

Dada,... I think my son said that years ago, some time after he said Mama!
But seriously, folks! Very cool stuff, Leslie! I can't wait to check out your "Garden In My Mind" show in Wilmington this Friday!