Marchel Duchamp
defined a urinal as a piece of art.
Dada was an extreme art movement driven by anarchy. The artist Breton said, "Dada is a state of mind" and the art historian Dawn Ades observes that "there is no such thing as a Dada style." Therefore, it doesn't take much to recreate Dada art. An artist need only oppose past aesthetics, break boundaries, explore chance and re-define the parameters of art. For instance, the leader of the Dadaists, Marchel Duchamp decided to exhibit a ready-made urinal--"Fountain"--and called it art.
Instructions
1. Find a ready-made object. It can be any man-made object around you--a vase, spoon, television, bed, etc. Give the object a new title. For instance, you could rename a vase a "Flower Jar" or a television called a "Moving Image Gallery." Display your ready-made object in a display cabinet and call it art, just as Marcel Duchamp did with a urinal and a bicycle wheel.
2. Gather some newspapers and magazines. Cut out random images and letters with a pair of scissors. Take a piece of card or paper and lay it down flat. Scatter your images and letters down on to the paper or card. Allow the laws of chance to decide the position of the images. Glue down the images in the spot where they landed to form your Dada composition. You have now created a Dada piece of art not dissimilar to the work of the Dadist artist Raoul Hausmann, who used photomontage to create art by creating a collage of media images and letters.
3. Rummage through the trash can for used garbage: candy wrappers, bus tickets, food labels, etc. Create a collage using old litter as a theme. Using a glue stick, randomly glue the pieces of litter packaging onto a sheet of paper or card or build a sculpture. Artist Kurt Schwitters often created collages out of found objects.
