“I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”
― Marcel Duchamp
Welcome
Art should be an experience. It should make you feel a million emotions and leave you baffled in some way or another. It should bring amusement and wonder, keeping you on your toes.
The art I create is meant to make you think and to tell a story. My story. Welcome to the experience.
One of the major influences in my art is the Dada art movement. Originating in Zurich, Switzerland in the 1910's, Dada was a combined effort between poets, painters, musicians, and more. Their main philosophy was to make art that means nothing; "Anti-Art" as they called it. This short avant-garde art movement became a voice for the voiceless during a time of unfathomable destruction and loss, a language among immigrants who surely had a difficult time communicating. This is my inspiration.
This is my Dada Manifesto.
Robyn Mallery
“Dada Manifesto 2024”
What even is a manifesto?
Oh, right, I remember.
A manifesto is a candlelit dinner. A raw flower on the table and a view of the decimated world around you. It’s okay, you don’t know any different.
No, a manifesto is one of those frogs with shiny green skin and orange padded feet. It hops away and is immediately eaten by a bird. Do birds eat those frogs?
Am I describing a manifesto or defining Dada? Da. Da da da. Do da dee bambanana popit noodel.
To try and define Dada would do a disservice to the 100 year history of the practice - not that you could call it a practice, but you also can’t not call it a practice. What does Dada mean to you? Why bring back such a short lived period of art? To echo Dadaist ancestors, “Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning”. At any rate, the world itself in 2024 echoes the world in which Dada first emerged. We (well, we is quite subjective isn’t it?) have just witnessed our generation’s Great Genocide, live-streamed on our mobiles. The images of children screaming and bloodied swirl around in our mind like an infant’s plaything.
Dada is empty but full, it is so dark that no light gets through and yet blindingly bright. It is useless and life changing. It is screaming into the void we have created. It is deadly and humorous. Dada is a piece of newsprint slapped on a milk carton. It is an upside down chair. Dada is fear. A, E, I, O, U, but never asking WHY?! Dada is the planet and the means in which we destroy it. It cannot and will not make sense, and yet it is all of the answers to all of the questions. Dada encompasses all that living things can create, including life itself.
I write a manifesto and I want something. I want … what was it again?
Dada is a nonsensical dual syllabic word. Often the first uttered by babies- what do they know that we don’t? Perhaps we should listen to babies more. Perhaps we should see them as full, complete human beings, rather than extensions of their parents. Bayyyybeee.
A manifesto is a liminal space, in which altered childhood memory meets déjà vu in an eerie, slightly uncomfortable center. Like a tootsie pop.
And why can’t we call a genocide a genocide?
“Approximation was invented by the impressionists,” but upheld by western journalists. Dada questions the governments that allow these things to happen. Dada is a reaction to unsurmountable evil and human destruction. Dada is. Dada was. Dada never existed.
What even is a manifesto?
Oh, right, I remember.
(no I don’t…)
