UVU celebrates 100 years of Dada

Professor of humanities and senior artist in residence, Alex Caldiero hosted an event celebrating 100 years of the art movement of DadaDadaism , also known as Dada, at UVU. The event featured a series of poetry readings by Professor Caldiero, as well as a look at Dada-outsider film. The event was held Sept.ember 2 at UVU in the CB Building.

The event commemorates the art movement known as Dada which was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916 during the height of World War 1 as a response to the anti-war movement.
Besides being an anti-war movement, scholars also consider Dada as an anarchic-art movement due to its ability to ignore aesthetics, and ignoring what traditional art represented during the time.

“They knew that the first Wworld Wwar was the biggest act of insanity in all of history, and it proved to be such, and it’s the disgust that sometimes people think that Dada and theseis guys were nihilist, they were great nay-sayers, no to everything. They were disgusted with it, with the whole western civilization,” said Caldiero.

The Dada-outsider film night at UVU lived up to the name of Dada. Faculty and students in attendance had the opportunity to witness chaos and anarchy crafted beautifully for an hour.

“I came to see work created out of chaos, and I saw chaos created out of a work,” said Scott Abbot, professor of integrated studies at UVU.

When asked if he had enjoyed the event, Abbot responded, “It troubled me, because it was wonderful.”

The black-and-white Dada-outsider film displayed at the event was said to be peculiar by certain students in attendance.

“It was chaotic, crazy, and I was trying to make sense of it, and I couldn’t.” said Caitlin Richardson, an art history student.

Students were also able to witness Professor Caldiero read Dada poetry. Caldiero’s poetry was far from traditional poetry, and yet he accomplished yet accomplishing the true manifest of Dada of being bizarre, which made for one intriguing event.

Dada has been around for 100 years now, and it’s been a major influence around the art community according to Caldiero.

“You cannot possibly name anybody who’s done anything in music, in painting, in theater, that has not somehow been influence or directly being a descendant of Dada, that’s how important, this very non-important thing is, and most people don’t even know about that connection but when Jimi Hendrix burns his guitar, that’s Dada, when David Bowie comes out in a costume, and you cannot tell just what he is, that’s Dada,” said Caldiero.
Dada has been around for 100 years now, and it’s been a major influence around the art community according to Caldiero.