DADA Differently

To mark the 100th anniversary of the dada movement, which originated in Zurich, Museum Haus Konstruktiv opens this exhibition year with the historical group exhibition “DADA Differently”, which is dedicated to three of this movement’s main female representatives: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Hannah Höch, and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

In the first half of the 20th century, two apparently contradictory art movements developed in Zurich, making this city a focal point in art history: dada, founded at Spiegelgasse 1 on February 5th, 1916, and concrete art, which had several of its most important manifestations in 1930s Zurich. Both of these art movements still provide guiding stimuli for international art to this day. No matter how different they appear to be, they do have a key aspect in common: the pursuit of maximum autonomy. Both radically broke away from their respective era’s conventional understanding of art: dada with its revolutionary gestures of actionist anti-art, and the concrete-constructivist movement with its consistent liberation of artistic means from their representational function. During the First World War, Zurich became a place of refuge for numerous opponents of war. Dada was their anarchistic response to the horrors of war, to middle-class norms, to art traditions, and to firmly established role models.

25.2.–8.5.2016
curated by Sabine Schaschl, Margit Weinberg Staber and Evelyne Bucher

Sabine Schaschl takes you on a digital short tour through the group exhibition