Reframing the narrative of Dada in New York, 1910--1926
Item
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Title
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Reframing the narrative of Dada in New York, 1910--1926
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:6fdaad6adc0b:11275
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identifier
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11718
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Creator
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Archino, Sarah,
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Contributor
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Rose-Carol Washton Long
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art history | American studies | Alfred Stieglitz | Anarchism | Marcel Duchamp | New York Dada | Vernacular
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Abstract
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New York Dada has historically been positioned as incompatible or antithetical to American modernism. This dissertation argues that the Dada spirit in New York not only rejected European conventions of high art, but did so with the nationalistic desire to develop a modern and independent American idiom through the influence of anarchism and vernacular culture. This study traces the influence of anarchism in New York on Alfred Stieglitz, his influential gallery, "291," and his publication, Camera Work, as well as larger anarchistic networks during the early 1910s. In this atmosphere of iconoclastic experimentation, vernacular culture emerged as an alternative strategy to critique the definitions and institutions of fine art.;Whereas most studies of New York Dada focus on the work of Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray, this study reconstructs the cultural conditions in which they worked. The year 1915 becomes a watershed moment, not simply for the arrival of Duchamp and Picabia, but for the publication of Van Wyck Brooks's cultural critique, America's Coming-of-Age. This text blamed the dichotomy between the highbrow and lowbrow for the lack of a truly American cultural idiom. I argue that the main character of New York Dada -- its enthusiastic adoption of the subjects, styles, and strategies of vernacular culture -- attempts to bridge that divide. The vernacular came to represent a new standard of American identity, a flexible definition that could allow an amateurish aesthetic to coexist with industrial imagery.;This study broadens the scope of New York Dada production to include the work of artists and critics who collaborated in this Dada spirit, but have historically been separated from the Dada movement. In this larger context, canonical works of Dada, especially periodicals such as The Ridgefield Gazook (1915), The Blind Man (1917), and New York Dada (1921) will be reconsidered.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Art History
