Photomontage and Dadaism: A Closer Look at Two Visionaries
By Ryan Brewer
Many believe art to be an insane practice, often confusing the masses and forever reinventing its own definition. Or perhaps art merely employs the artist who pushes for revolution after revolution, responsible for the human-activity’s evolution, but also dependant on the world to respond, or simply to react…Which is precisely, no matter your perspective, the basis for the spawning of Dadaism. Previous to its incarnation, oil paintings and classical figure sculpture were all the rage, arguably so since the Middle Ages, regardless of style or era that followed. However, the minds of the world were more than stimulated by the introduction of the machine into society, initiating a series of revolutionary ideas. Since the global industrial revolution, the world has been changed, both for better and worse, forever. What has ensued since the 19th century’s mechanized breakthrough has made us believe our lives would become easier, due to the aid of the gadget or vehicle. Yet, we can see instruments of war have risen out of the industrial rubble and several world wars, the first of their kind, have been waged…While we may be happily vacuuming, or going for a leisurely Sunday drive. The very tools we hold dear, we have used to turn on ourselves. This suspicion of the insidious qualities of the machine is not a new one. The detestable and dark prowess war holds on the societies it ravishes is hardy a new protest. For centuries, we have shuddered at the idea of war, we have feared the very idea of dead and wounded brethren, flailing and failing economies, world injustice and chaotic political unrest. But with the induction of the machine, (catapulting the speed and consequences in which we make decisions as well as the inability to accurately predict the future consequences), we have found ourselves spinning wildly out to control, desperately grasping to any source of truth or pure and effective mode of communication and understanding. Isolation is yet another human response to the technology we reap. Luckily for society, artists have played the massive role of communicator of their eras, and the Dadaists are no exception. To further gain a thorough understanding of Dadaism, and its insurgent visual communication tactics, we will examine two artists closely, as well as two of their more profound pieces, asserting an exclusive aesthetics of the machine age, appropriately called “Photomontage,” literary translating to “Photo Assembly Line,” a term for an industrial form of production. Like other machines, the camera was one that quickly found a multitude of uses. Initially used for portraits and product-selling advertising campaigns, soon the camera and its bi-product, the photograph, found its way into the art world. With pre-war economies booming, industry raging on, and the mass-development of imagery, artists such as Marcel Duchamp and El Lissitzky responded the only way artists can- by throwing society back into its own face. While by no means the creators of this art movement, Duchamp and Lissitzky certainty contributed to Dadaism through photomontage in their own unique ways. French artist Marcel Duchamp, widely known now for his oftentimes humorous response to mass media, consumerism and industry, was initially rejected, his ideas and art declared as vulgar, unimportant and insulting. Recall his sculpture “Fountain,” a ceramic urinal, not designed by him, just a mass-produced object on which he signed his name. Or perhaps, leading us to further link ideas of photomontage and the entire Dadaist art movement, one would look at another of his slap-in-the-face sculptures, “Bicycle Wheel,” in which he creates a spinning bicycle wheel atop a wooden stool, perhaps to channel the idiocy of the mechanized age. Regardless, the sculpture employs an important concept of Dadaist photomontage- the connection and juxtaposition of objects, communicating a fresh meaning from the one they had previously. What simply once functioned now speaks. In a more graphic piece of his, entitled “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass),” we can start to understand the heart of photomontage, how the composition far differently consumes, or does not consume, the picture plane. While this piece is in fact three dimensional, (two panes of glass fitted into a frame structure, Duchamp’s use of line, color and the relationships between separate forms is classic dada style. While many historians are unaware of the intended meaning of this piece, I believe, like many of his works, it signifies a change in thought process, specifically about art, and the parameter-less presence true art commands.
El Lissitzky, a Russian avant-garde artist, excelled in many studies; from graphic design, to architecture, to photography. All of these skills are evident in his work– especially one such photomontage/self portrait entitled “The Constructor.” The photographic elements he incorporates into the composition are much less ambiguous than Duchamp’s work, and thus lead the viewer to perhaps ponder less, but receive more information at a quicker rate. In the piece, we see a desaturated image of the artist himself. It appears out of his forehead reaches a hand, holding a compass, not only signifying the scientific and mathematical functioning of the brain, but also how perhaps the industrial society required ones mind to operate. Behind the figure in the foreground lies a gridded plane, backing further the implications of industry, as well as design, on the individual. Lissitzky once said, on photomontage, “…there develops a technique of simple effectiveness which appears to be very easy to operate and for that reason can easily develop into dull routine, but which in powerful hands turns out to be the most successful method of achieving visual poetry.”
