- Paperback: 706 pages
- Publisher: MIT Press; New Ed edition (4 May 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0262692600
- ISBN-13: 978-0262692601
- Product Dimensions: 2 x 1.7 x 0.4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 993,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
"Important and stimulating. Its detailed accounts of major womendadas... are exceptionally valuable for the new historicalinformation they contain." Rachel Blackwell , The Bloomsbury Review " Women in Dada performs an important function not merely in revivinglost reputations, but in raising issues that are as hot--if not asnew--today as they were in the Dada epoch." Linda Nochlin , Bookforum
Product Description
This book is the first to make the case that women's changing role in European and American society was critical to Dada. Debates about birth control and suffrage, a declining male population and expanding female workforce, the emergence of the New Woman, and Freudianism were among the forces that contributed to the dadaist enterprise.Among the female dadaists discussed are the German emigre Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven; Berlin dadaist Hannah Hoch; expatriate poet and artist Mina Loy; the "Queen of Greenwich Village," Clara Tice; Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, the lesbian couple who ran the Little Review; and Beatrice Wood, who died in 1998 at the age of 105. The book also addresses issues of colonialist racism, cross-dressing and dandyism, and the gendering of the machine.
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2 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Interesting collection of essays
2 Jan 2006
Format:Hardcover
While this book contains essays on the lesser discussed women of Dada, it also covers gender and identity in Dada - including Marcel Duchamp. It is also worth pointing out that while most of the women covered are Dadaists, not all are. Specifically, Georgia O'Keefe doesn't really fall into the Dada category. I would recommend this for those interested in the intersection of gender and early twentieth century art.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Making dada out of almost nada...
29 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
The poop: The premise behind this collection of academic essays is that women have been marginalized to the fringes of Dada history. While it's quite possible that women have been undervalued throughout art history, it is also true that there is sometimes good reason for this and it has nothing to do with patriarchal politics or prejudice. Such is the case with Dada--at least that's my conclusion after reading *Women in Dada.* Although the authors generally make the case that women made some interesting contributions to Dada, they are, at best, minor contributions, and, for the most part, do belong among the footnotes of a history of the movement.
Indeed, some of the artists and writers discussed had, by the authors' own admission, only the briefest and most tangential involvement with Dada, which of itself explains why they've been marginalized in the conventional telling of Dada history.
The scoop: *Women in Dada* is a book worth reading if you're seriously interested in either Dada or woman/gender studies, but probably not for the casual reader of either. This collection bears all the trademarks of post-graduate school critical writing: interpretations teased and sometimes tortured beyond all reasonable assumptions into the semblance of something new for the purpose of saying something new, furthering an agenda, advancing a personal philosophy, etc., in other words, Derridean-style deconstruction without apology. The constant re-interpretation of old material is what academic writing has always been about--part of the vicious publish-or-perish cycle--and, ostensibly, what keeps art and literature by those long dead relevant to our time.
These subsequent re-interpretations can be interesting, illuminating (or annoying) and serve to prove that art and literature can be thought of as a kind of eternal Rorschach that tells us more about ourselves in our reaction to a work than it does the original artist or his/her original intent--a jumping-off place for original creation based on contemporary reactions.
For me, this book was most rewarding by my reading it as a sort of negative of the negative of the untold history of Dada that the authors were trying to provide--a restoring of the original Dada picture by means of where the shadow history borders on that of the major figures of Dada, who are all well-represented here.
If that makes sense. If not, try this: you get a lot of info about Duchamp, Picabia, Schwitters, Arp, Ball, etc, even if they aren't the main focus of these essays.
Also--this book is nicely formatted, well-made, and generously illustrated throughout, altho the plates are in money-saving black-and-white.
So, let me close in Dada-fashion by saying, and not irrelevantly, I trust: Unconventional on criticize broken decides life.....reenacted!
Indeed, some of the artists and writers discussed had, by the authors' own admission, only the briefest and most tangential involvement with Dada, which of itself explains why they've been marginalized in the conventional telling of Dada history.
The scoop: *Women in Dada* is a book worth reading if you're seriously interested in either Dada or woman/gender studies, but probably not for the casual reader of either. This collection bears all the trademarks of post-graduate school critical writing: interpretations teased and sometimes tortured beyond all reasonable assumptions into the semblance of something new for the purpose of saying something new, furthering an agenda, advancing a personal philosophy, etc., in other words, Derridean-style deconstruction without apology. The constant re-interpretation of old material is what academic writing has always been about--part of the vicious publish-or-perish cycle--and, ostensibly, what keeps art and literature by those long dead relevant to our time.
These subsequent re-interpretations can be interesting, illuminating (or annoying) and serve to prove that art and literature can be thought of as a kind of eternal Rorschach that tells us more about ourselves in our reaction to a work than it does the original artist or his/her original intent--a jumping-off place for original creation based on contemporary reactions.
For me, this book was most rewarding by my reading it as a sort of negative of the negative of the untold history of Dada that the authors were trying to provide--a restoring of the original Dada picture by means of where the shadow history borders on that of the major figures of Dada, who are all well-represented here.
If that makes sense. If not, try this: you get a lot of info about Duchamp, Picabia, Schwitters, Arp, Ball, etc, even if they aren't the main focus of these essays.
Also--this book is nicely formatted, well-made, and generously illustrated throughout, altho the plates are in money-saving black-and-white.
So, let me close in Dada-fashion by saying, and not irrelevantly, I trust: Unconventional on criticize broken decides life.....reenacted!
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