Jake and Dinos Chapman: Die Dada Die

Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich

“Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man.” Or, that’s how one reviewer for American Art News felt about it. Time, however, is a funny thing. What was once called sick and destructive is now housed in museums. Even John Waters, who’s Pink Flamingos was banned in some countries, has had a museum show while, and not to imply a direct comparison, more recent coprophagia film Two Girls One Cup has been numerously cited as an indicator of declining morality.

It’s difficult to think of a more appropriate pair of artists than Jake and Dinos Chapman to undertake the job of going back to the birthplace of Dada to confront the legacy of the movement on its home turf at the world famous Cabaret Voltaire. After all, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine that what was written in American Art News about Dada had been written about any number of the Chapmans works. After researching in the Dada archives in Zurich, they decided that Dada cannot be rectified; it must either be illustrated or “de-Dadaised,” meaning that the elements of the Dada ideal must be broken apart in order to be put back together again.

Alongside a series of Dada inspired collages is a new work following the artist’s previous interventions directly on the surface of works by Goya, Hogarth, and Adolf Hitler. This time it is a Brueghel the Younger crucifixion scene completed in 1607, which sat in the artists’ studio for a year before they began their work making their own mark on the old master. Dada proclaimed that for everything that art stood for, they stood for the opposite. This exhibition at Cabaret Voltaire is a perfect opportunity to consider what art stands for today.

June 10 – August 22, 2010 at Cabaret Voltaire, Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zurich

If your stopping over in Zurich, do it at the Greulich Hotel.

—

Categories: Zurich, Art

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost