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DADA
SOUND ARCHIVE
May 30 – July 15 2006
opening reception: Tuesday, May 30, 6 – 8 pm
All the styles of the last twenty years
came together yesterday. Huelsenbeck, Tzara and Janco took
the floor with a “poéme simultan” [‘L’Amiral
cherche un maison à louer’]. That is a contrapuntal
recitative in which three or more voices speak, sing, whistle,
etc., at the same time in such a way that the elegiac, humorous,
or bizarre content of the piece is brought out by these combinations.
– Hugo Ball, ‘Flight Out Of Time’, entry
from 1916
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The SWISS INSTITUTE – CONTEMPORARY ART (S
I) is pleased to present a DADA SOUND ARCHIVE,
coinciding with The
Museum of Modern Art’s major Dada exhibition this
summer (Jun 18 - Sept 11). Recognizing Zurich’s historical
significance as the birthplace of the anti-art movement, the
S I lounge will feature listening stations for recordings
of Dada music, poetry and performance by Dadaists including
Jean Arp, Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, Raoul Hausmann,
Kurt Schwitters, Tristan Tzara and others. The aim with the
Dada Sound Archive is not to define, but to offer examples
of the often under-exposed form of Dada: sound. The spoken
word, recited manifesto and sound poem were central to the
movement’s diverse history.
A large selection of reading material related to the movement
will be available for visitors to explore Dada’s varied
manifestations across Europe and New York and the wide spectrum
of forms that Dada took. The archive pulls from different
available sources of recordings and materials, both from the
period between 1916-1922 and from later performances by the
authors and artists. The project will inevitably result in
showing the contradictions and unclassifiable nature of Dada,
which Dada itself embraced.
What is available to us now, in archives and collections (collage,
sculpture, writing, poetry, sound experiments, manifestos),
ultimately does not flesh out the spirit of Dada. It is the
space in between those forms where we find Dada: a movement
beyond categorization.
I'm
writing this manifesto to show that you can perform contrary
actions at the same time, in one single, fresh breath; I am
against action; as for continual contradiction, and affirmation
too, I am neither for nor against them, and I won't explain
myself because I hate common sense. – Tristan
Tzara, ‘Dada Manifesto 1918’
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