Last Days of Dada

Today was the last day of a major retrospective of the Dada movement at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. I went along on Sunday and found that a couple of thousand other people had had the same idea.

I became fascinated by Dada in my teens: by the iconoclastic German artist and poet, Kurt Schwitters, by the strange manifestos and poems of Tristan Tzara and the funny-peculiar world of Marcel Duchamp. Here's a few Dada quotes that I've translated from a little book called 'Dada en verve' published by Horay.

If you want to have fresh ideas change them as often as your shirt. Picabia

Happiness for me is to be bossed about by no one and to boss no one about. Picabia

Everything that isn't me is incomprehensible. Aragon

I have a horror of going into those houses where the balconies and ornaments are carefully stuck to the walls. Tzara

Evasion should remain at the tips of the fingers like a balancing toy. Picabia

It's very good to feel where the wind is coming from by wetting your finger. Picabia

Workplace accidents, nothing will contradict me, are more beautiful than sensible marriages. Breton

The most magificent doors are those behind which one shouts: 'Open in the name of the law!' Breton

It's not beautiful to speak of thorny questions. Satie

Trees and chimneys have left me deaf. Soupault

All conviction is an illness. Picabia

Paralysis is the first step towards wisdom. Picabia