"In the years before World War I, Europe appeared to be losing its hold on reality...Schoenberg's music was atonal, Mallarme's poems scrambled syntax and scattered words across the page and Picasso's ...Cubism made a hash of human anatomy. And even more radical ideas were afoot. Anarchists and nihilists inhabited the political fringe, and a new breed of artist was starting to attack the very concept of art itself...This new, irrational art movement would be named Dada...And for all its zaniness, the movement would prove to be one of the most influential in modern art, foreshadowing abstract and conceptual art, performance art, op, pop and installation art." (Smithsonian) This profile of Dada traces the origins of this avant-garde movement and considers its impact on "20th-century artists and art movements." The contributions of such influential figures in Dadaism as Marcel Duchamp, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia and Man Ray are highlighted.
