By Theodore A. HoppeExperienced any Dada lately?
The Dada movement of the early decades of last century originally emerged as an anti-war movement, but in many ways it became an anti-art movement, which helped to shape Modern Art for the rest of the 20 century. Duchamp's Fountain, a urinal signed R. Mutt, submitted in 1917 to the Society of Independent Artists, was intended to confront the viewer and engender emotions of shock or outrage, but it can be said that it is nonsensical to the point of whimsy.
Assemblage, collage, photomontage and the use of ready made objects all gained acceptance due to their use in Dada. The concept of Dada does not lend itself to being considered a movement or an -ism. The term itself is thought to have been randomly chosen from a French dictionary.
Jerome Lipani's Assemblages and Cinematic Photography: Political Deconstruction (in all its phases) has been enjoying a lengthy run at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. Rooted in Dada, Jerome Lipani's artistic expressions seems to reject logic. It appears chaotic and irrational, because it is not art, it is anti-art, and that is its triumph.
"I am trying to indicate the possibility of the self-creation of a state of mind," says Lipani, "which can transcend (through a deliberate attempt at "undeniability") the very political miasma which it is encountering."
C. G. Jung's observation of Dada was, "It's too idiotic to be schizophrenic." Dada has but one rule, to never follow rules, and therefore there is nothing to critique, and one must refrain from a review of it, or describing it. It exists only in the experience and interaction, to and with it. The Kellogg-Hubbard Library is one of Montpelier's premier locations for art exhibits and the library is to be applauded for presenting this avant-garde exhibition. Usually, exhibits of such a progressive orientation are limited to coffee houses and colleges.Get there soon. It may or may not be there when you are, but it won't be the same without you.
