Dada

Dada was founded in neutral Zurich, Switzerland, by artists and writers who had fled the war, and quickly spread to Berlin, New York, Paris, and elsewhere. Disillusioned by a "civilised" Europe that had produced mass slaughter, Dadaists concluded that reason and tradition — including traditional art — had failed, and set out to mock and dismantle established cultural values through deliberately illogical, provocative work.

Use of found objects and "ready-mades"; collage and photomontage; deliberate nonsense, absurdity, and humour; anti-aesthetic, anti-skill approach that challenged the idea of what art even was; performance and provocation.

Historically, the trauma and mass death of the First World War directly triggered Dada's rejection of rational, traditional culture. Socially, disgust with nationalism and the institutions that had led Europe into war drove the movement's anti-establishment stance. Philosophically, Dada questioned Enlightenment faith in reason and progress, arguing that "civilised" logic had produced catastrophe.

Dada matters because it asked, seriously, "what counts as art?" a question that still shapes contemporary art today, especially in Conceptual Art, where the idea behind a work can matter more than its craftsmanship. While the original movement's goal was to rebel, they ended up changing how people view, and question art fundamentally