Hugo Ball, 1886 – 1927. Father of the Dada movement with his wife, the artist Emmy Hennings
Zurich, 1917
“The Dadaists were united by their conviction that the horrors around them, the death and destruction of World War 1, were rooted in outdated bourgeois values that still governed Europe, and that societal order, with its inequalities and brutality, needed to be destroyed for another, more human, to be created.”
Founded in 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich by the philosopher and visionary Hugo Ball, the seminal art movement known as Dada, by 1922 had as its major European hubs Zurich, Paris, Barcelona, Hanover and Berlin – yet curiously no London center was ever established.
London Dada, founded by artist and writer Michael St.Mark in 2005, and pioneering the online art gallery genre via 691 ( shadowed by Saatchi Online in 2006 ), is representing that historically missing link in Dada by following in the footsteps of its founder, invoking vitally-needed political, social and moral perception, invention, criticism and protest within British contemporary art and in the spiritual shipwreck that is UK society today.
Dada, cutting-edge scourge of the establishment and undisputed catalyst for the sea change in art that occurred during the early 20th C. is re-surfacing through its missing jigsaw piece London expression – a 21st century cyber and public art antidote for the hi-jacking, side-tracking and stifling of UK art into a tightly closed shop run by a clique of old school tie elitists who use money as a means of rigging the art market into turning massive personal profits. Heading a network of kowtowing gallery owners, they have rendered contemporary art virtually sterile; reducing the big galleries to little more than purveyors of the the bawdy and the tawdry; selectively promoting through those evergreen guarantors of hype-to-order, the fawning careerworths of the UK arts review media – a harem of hand-picked ‘shock or bore’ cash cow artists.
As against .. ” For us, art is not an end in itself … but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.” – Hugo Ball, founder of DADA, 1916.
‘True perception and criticism of our times’ – subjects considered almost taboo in UK art today, where rampant cronyism and self-serving politics within the most insidious, entrenched and brazenly divisive class system in the world blocks truth, innovation and free range of expression throughout the arts.
” The British (establishment ) are never comfortable with artists who think” – Adrian Hamilton, arts reviewer @ The Independent, 26/8/2013
The London Dada vision outwith this sorry arts and culture morass of conformist stagnation and stasis is the instigation of an ‘art spring’ – a 21st C. enlightenment that re-invigorates art with critical social commentary and a new direction that eschews the anachronistic mediocrity and the worn-out cogs of contemporary art.
We’re currently seeking development patrons for the London Dada brand and our 691 gallery in Shoreditch – people who feel passionately about the need for zeitgeist art reflecting current times, that seriously addresses injustice and critically engages and communicates rather than superficially entertains baffles or nauseates; art that re-connects with life, offering fresh perceptions and thought-provoking narratives.
* * * * * ” When art changes the world will change.” – M.St.M
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