"Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball. Passage, Interpretatio/ Artist movement

"Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball,

Passage 

Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse". In German it means "good-bye", "Get off my back", "Be seeing you sometime". In Romanian: "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right". And so forth.

Interpretation:

Hugo is basically announcing the emergence of a new art movement called Dada and their intention to defy conventional notion of artistic beauty and correctness. And politically showing his dislike for a terrible state of society, however, Hugo is trying to tell people how simple Dada is but it hurt him that people do not want to understand, for instance as they are small voice protesting against the war yet the war went on for long period of time against humanity.

 I chose this quote because it means a lot of things, for instance a lot of people simply follow the mass for things they do not carefully give it a second thought.

  Moreover, I do agreed with the quote to the level of my understanding, for instance in the contemporary world  you can see a clear example when republicans consistently embarking on war,people gave them support without thinking of the repercussion which had an adverse effect on the economy for almost a decade now.

 I personally see DADA to be as an anti art as its main principle was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the insignificance of the modern world. 

 
SECOND ASSIGNMENT:  
George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959)

 

George Grosz was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1893, he is the son of a pub owner. His parents were devotedly Lutheran. He grew up in the Pomeranian town, where his mother became the keeper of the local Hussar's Officers' mess after his father died in 1901.he was  encourage by his cousin to  begun attending a weekly drawing class taught by a local painter named Grot. Grosz developed his skills further by drawing careful copies of the drinking scenes of Eduard von Grützner, and by drawing imaginary battle scenes. From 1909–1911, he studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. He subsequently studied at the Berlin College of Arts and Crafts under Emil Orlik. After studying art in Dresden and Berlin he began contributing cartoons to German journals such as Ulk and Lustige Blatter.

in addition, on the outbreak of the First World War Grosz accepted to be conscripted into the German Army In June 1932. He was eventually released as unfit for duty. However, the following year, desperate for soldiers, Grosz was called up again. Kept from forefront action, he was used to transport and guard prisoners of war. He was later discharged from duty due ill health.

Moreover, His earliest oils that can be identified today date from 1916.By 1914, Grosz worked in a style influenced by Expressionism and Futurism, as well as by popular illustration, graffiti, and children's drawings. Sharply outlined forms are often treated as if transparent. ‘The City’ (1916–17) was the first of his many paintings of the modern urban scene. Other examples include the ‘apocalyptic Explosion' (1917), Metropolis (1917), and The Funeral, a 1918 painting depicting a mad funeral procession.

After his emigration to the USA in 1933, Grosz "sharply rejected previous work, In place of his earlier corrosive vision of the city.  And became a citizen of the United States in 1938, and made his home in Bayside, New York. He taught at the Art Students League occasionally until 1955.

   Furthermore, he determined to make a sparkling break with his past, and changed his style and subject matter. He continued to exhibit regularly, and in 1946 he published his autobiography.  Though he had US citizenship, he resolved to return to Berlin, where he died on July 6, 1959 from the effects of falling down a flight of stairs after a night of drinking.

 

 

Friedrich Ebert: Life of a Socialist (1919)

The paints  depict a man sitting comfortably while being served drink by a servant, with a crown on his head which looks like an expensive treasure, it also shows greed, lies, dishonesty, selfishness and power. I believe George Grosz is trying to let us know the lies of the socialist leaders in Germany who are advocating common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises which in turn they rather follow their greed and self-centeredness .

 

 

 

 

 Cain or Hitler in Hell (1944) is a depiction of a huge Fuhrer sitting on a pitch in a blackened hellhole with sweat running down his forehead, in front of a mass of small skeletons. I believe  George Grosz is trying to express his hatred for the Nazi party and the Hitler himself for the atrocities he has caused .This painting clearly exhibit the eventually demise of Nazi and the end to Hitler. I believe Grosz is trying to tell the world how Hitler is going to end. I strongly agreed with Grosz because In life they say you reap what you sow.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eclipse of the Sun depicts a scornful critique of the military industrial complex that controlled Weimar Germany where power and greed, reigned supreme.

The sun, a symbol of life, is eclipsed by a dollar sign, a symbol of greed. The donkey has blinders on shows the mass ignorantly. A small child is kept underneath them signifying the ignoring future generations. The convoluted perspective of the image underscores the instability of Weimar Germany.

George Grosz will always be remembered as a cheerfully hurtful satirist of bourgeois satisfaction and political corruption during the years of the Weimar Republic. Yet for more than half his artistic life he lived in the United States, returning to Berlin just a few months before he died.