DADA TECHNIQUES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE (1916–1930)

The 'Petőfi Literary Museum - Kassák Museum' and the 'Institute for Literary Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' are organizing a conference to mark the centenary of the beginning of Dada in Zurich. The conference is going to concentrate on Dada phenomena in East-Central Europe, especially the Dada techniques that appeared in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its successor states. The avant-garde artists of the East-Central European region felt the impact of Dada at the end of the First World War, when established economic, political and identity strategies were going through crisis and rearrangement. In these years, many borders became blurred: between centre and periphery, between politics and anti-politics, and among genders, artists’ roles and forms of artistic expression.

A distinctive attitude of Dada was the crossing of borders, and this had a uniquely emancipating role: by suspending traditional social norms, it opened the way to artistic self-realization without borders. Dada dispensed with the questions of origin, religious background, women’s role stereotypes or even formal artistic training. It removed the moral barriers to asking previously inconceivable and provocative questions concerning artistic creation and reception, institutions, society and public taste in general. Dada was a symptom of the decomposition of the old world. Its radical language had an impact even on artists who never called themselves ‘Dadaists’.

What did avant-garde artists use Dada for in East-Central Europe during the 1910s and 1920s? Certainly to commit systematic border incursions. The borders were those between languages, majority and minority identities, politics and anti-politics. The artistic border incursions to be discussed at the conference make up five planned section themes:

Dada, border incursions and ...
1. Geopolitics
- The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: centre, periphery,
emigration
- Networks, cultural transfers
- Internationalism, ‘Übernationalität’

2. Politics, anti-politics, war

3. Artists’ roles
- Vagabondism and dandyism
- Mainstream and elite culture

4. Gender

5. Artistic crossovers
- Reception in art theory and criticism
- Language
- Magazines
- Theatre, music, literature, visual arts, etc.

We expect applications of young and senior researchers as well as PhD candidates from all relevant disciplines including, but not limited to art history, literary history, music history, history of intellectuals and social sciences. Please send 250-word abstracts for 20-minute conference presentations accompanied by a brief CV to kassakmuzeumpim.hu and kappanyos.andrasbtk.mta.hu by 30 June 2016.

Conference venue: Kassák Museum, Budapest
Conference dates: 14-15 October 2016 (Friday-Saturday)
Conference languages: Hungarian and English