Because I lived close to DC and (did I mention) all Smithonian museums in DC were free, I felt so obligated to go to the Dada exhibition in NGA -- on the last day. Turned out I wasn't the only one who procrastinated: It was PACKED like Time Square.
The exhibition was organized geographically to show the many faces of Dada in six cities. So many years after this avant-garde movement, it was still fresh, freaky and funny: Like the Mona Lisa with mustache and goatee or the pig-faced Nazi soldier hung over your head. If Raphael could have some fun by sneaking a self-portrait in the "School of Athens", why couldn't we have some fun by mounting a bicycle wheel on a stool and calling it art? Like the (re)discovery of dissonates in music, Dada added a whole new vocabulary to the language of art.
One thing I didn't like about the exhibition was that they put Duchamp's "Fountain" in a strange place, presumably to avoid further damage/urination.
The exhibition was organized geographically to show the many faces of Dada in six cities. So many years after this avant-garde movement, it was still fresh, freaky and funny: Like the Mona Lisa with mustache and goatee or the pig-faced Nazi soldier hung over your head. If Raphael could have some fun by sneaking a self-portrait in the "School of Athens", why couldn't we have some fun by mounting a bicycle wheel on a stool and calling it art? Like the (re)discovery of dissonates in music, Dada added a whole new vocabulary to the language of art.
One thing I didn't like about the exhibition was that they put Duchamp's "Fountain" in a strange place, presumably to avoid further damage/urination.
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