Dada Köln

But what is it with everyone wanting to turn Dada into a museum object? Dada was a bomb, he adds. Can you imagine someone, nearly half a century after the explosion of a bomb, trying to collect the fragments, glue them together, and display them? What more will they know? They will be shown objects, collages. Through this, we expressed our taste, our indignation, our revolt. They will see it only as a phase, a step, as they say, in the history of art; exactly the opposite of what Dada wanted. And they expect me to write about it? (Very dryly:) I am not a historian! Max Ernst (1958) So far, DADA COLOGNE - with a few exceptions - has essentially been addressed as an early creative period of Max Ernst. It is certainly accurate that Max Ernst's work, which developed significantly during the Cologne Dada years from 1919 to 1922, surpasses the artistic oeuvres of his Dadaist peers in its art historical significance. However, this extreme predominance of Ernst only seems justified in retrospect of his overall work, which underestimates his Dada phase's contributions twice over. For it is neither appropriate to view Ernst's Dada works merely as a prologue to his surrealist oeuvre, nor does the art historical significance of Ernst's overall work necessarily imply the subordination of the Dada works of Hans Arp or Johannes Theodor Baargeld. Especially when considering DADA COLOGNE as a group phenomenon, this overly narrow judgment must be revised.