Abstract

Nietzsche’s analysis of society—its decadence and nihilism—has been quite influential among 20th century art movements; his diagnostic of culture and his response to it inspired many artists and still does nowadays. His critique of traditional culture—and this concerns as much morality, science, religion, philosophy than art—calls for a revaluation of all values, that is a profound modification of the foundations of culture. One of the most influential art movements which was inspired by this idea is Dada, an art movement born in 1916, at the height of World War One. Dada rose in a context of European crisis and one of its most terrible symptoms: war. Dada, like Nietzsche, aims to overcome traditional culture and society. More than a hundred years after Dada’s birth, Europe is in no less a crisis (even though it takes a different form) and the response Dada offered—and Nietzsche’s influence on it—might be some place to which return. Inasmuch as Nietzsche returned to the Greeks looking for a rebirth of tragedy, we might need a rebirth of Dada to respond to the contemporary crisis. Dada’s attitude towards society and tradition—and Nietzsche’s attitude towards culture—can be characterised as warlike. And this warlike attitude does not mean that war is the solution, quite the contrary as Dada attempts to escape the on-going war, but that in order to overcome society and create something new, we must take risks. Against the destruction that was surrounding them, Dada’s founders engaged in a playful and joyful creation through the undermining of traditional forms of art. Culture should not follow the ways of tradition but express a break with it by creating new traditions. My paper therefore focuses on three aspects: first on Nietzsche’s and Dada’s diagnostic of culture, secondly on their response to the crisis they diagnose, and thirdly on the answer they offer to exit the crisis and the role of the joyful creation of art in this undertaking.