Shock and the Senseless in Dada and Fluxus

by Dorothee Brill

In this thought-provoking work, Dorothée Brill examines notions of shock and the senseless in Dada and Fluxus, pairing two distinctly radical art movements that challenged the very notion and purpose of art. Laying out a genealogy of surrealisms, she addresses the senseless in artistic production as a strategy toward shock―generally considered to be characteristic of the historical avant-garde. Examining the changing correlation between the notions of shock and the senseless in their artistic use in prewar Europe and postwar America, Brill arrives at a new understanding of the overstrained and generally pejorative catch phrase of “shock for shock’s sake.”

Genres: Art

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2010

Reviews

[Bryce Galloway]

Locates the subtle similarities and differences between Dada and Fluxus. Dada’s capacity to drag its anti-art into the gallery while Fluxus largely stuck to the street/non-art contexts. Dada’s shock and Fluxus’s zen-laced wilful boring of the audience.
Thankfully, the ‘shock’ in this book transcends sensationalism and novelty [unlike the YBA, lol], it’s the search for an art or anti-art language capable of expressing the senselessness of context: WWI in Europe; the Cold War and social unrest of 60s US. It’s Hans Arp’s notion of the “a-sensible” […] “an attempt to formulate a position beyond a dualistic relationship between sense and nonsense.”
Brill lets Benjamin, Freud and Adorno speak with Tzara, Huelsenbeck and Maciunas, locating Dada and Fluxus ‘shock and the senseless’ as its own language beyond other content. Brill digs and compares and digs some more, always insightful. And it’s always surprising when a PhD rewrite ends up being this readable.

[Megan]

Wonderful! I am in love with the Dada movement, and I picked up this book because I was interested to see how one would describe the use of shock in artwork. I was totally not expecting the descriptive, thought-out essay that Brill produces here. I was completely immersed from the first page. She does an excellent job of explaining how "shock" actually came into being, and then applies it to the content of Dada and Fluxus. Her writing style keeps the book intelligent while flows smoothly.