DADA

DADA

On Saturday Elizabeth, Erin, and I went to see the DADA exhibit at the National Gallery. (If that link doesn't work, you can check out MOMA, that's the exhibit's next stop.)

We got in just under the wire, it was the last day in DC. We had tired to go sooner but silly things like Easter and sister graduating from college got in our way. But hey, we got it.

I was struck by a couple of things as I wondered through the exhibit.

1) My Brick friend really is more of an artist that he gives himself credit for.
2) The Dada artists are more relevant to our time than I could have possibly imagined.
3) The artists in Europe were one angry bunch of people.
4) The New York artists seemed more into technology, but they were a little angry.
5) I identified equally with the European and New York artist.
6) Most of the work done by the Dada artist was pretty mono-tone. But when then did use color, they used the most amazing blues and greens. And it seemed that all of the artists... no matter from where they hailed seemed to use these same wonderful blues and greens. I wonder if that's something the curator did -- or if there was some kind of conspiracy to use the same colors. Whatever, I really like the blues and greens.
7) Man Ray was cooler than I expected. One of my favorite photographers is Bill Brandt and he was monitored by Man Ray. I've always thought it an odd pairing because there is almost nothing similar in their work. But I've never had a chance to see much of Man Ray's work outside of books and it was much cooler in person.
8) George Foreman and Mohammad Ali were not the first self obsessed public figures. Man Ray did not make PHOTOgraphs. He made RAYographs.
9) I'm really into the idea of "ready made" art. The value of my personal possessions has just increased 100-fold. Now, if I could just convince my insurance company of that fact...