Dada

(Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919)

Tonight, Chicago is trying a bold arts-festival experiment - Looptopia. I think Montreal is the only other city that has ever done anything like this. And the Trib has a nice "guide" to events. Which include a description of Soiree Dada. Admitted, Dada is a strange art movement, but the blurb pretty much laughs at it as alien, meaning that if anyone who read it actually goes, they will be pointing and laughing, instead of just taking in the experience. And what really burns my butt (even more than the judgmental) is the incorrect accusation that Dada led to World War I. It was an artistic response to the mindless destruction!!!! ARGH! Dada is an interesting, deliciously bizarre movement. Don't pin the Great War on it.

(Duchamp's Fountain, 1917 - the subversion of the ordinary)

I should not be as riled up about this as I am. Maybe it's the insidious art-bashing. Or maybe it's the basic lack of research. Maybe it's the caffeine kicking in too quickly.