Dada's influence on Punk

I am interested in the links Nabeel made between punk and Dada in Wednesday's lecture. The Dada movement was very much anti-establishment within literary and art circles challenging views of high and low art. Starting as a reaction to World War I, Dada artists through out Europe used poetry, photo-montage and other creative arts as a form of expression, rebelling against the structures of the establishment.

The deconstructed fashion of the punk era such as clothes held together with saftey pins and the t-shirts created by Vivian Westwood can be linked with the ideas of photo-montage. Dada artists such as John Heartfield, Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch created artworks using existing images such as magazine and newspaper pages to challenge the exclusive nature of high art.

In a stage one art history lecture on Dada the lecturer started the PowerPoint show as usual but within a few minutes things had become chaotic. Throughout the hour a man dressed in a giant kiwi costume ran in and out of the room, the slide numbers went in no particular order -1, 2, 8, 4, 7, 4, 7, 7, the tutor stood up and recited nonsensical Dada poetry while the lecturer was speaking and then the lecturer balanced something on his head, sat down and played the violin while a student was asked to continue the lecture! Perhaps the most memorable lecture in my university studies, the Dada movement made quite an impression!

Anna