DADA Chicago 2016

Join us as we celebrate 100 years of DADA—dada enlightenment, dada the great joke. DADA year in Zurich, dada shows in New York, dada festivals in Japan, grand dada happenings planned by San Francisco’s City Lights, but nothing, nothing, nothing for Chicago. So we have taken it upon ourselves to organize an exhibition and events in the true spirit of dada. We will have a Cabaret Voltaire, an Andy Warhol look-alike contest, a do-it-yourself dada night, a dada seance, dada games, dada films/music/ poetry/ performance, and outrageous dada celebrations of the piracy of pleasures, and the pleasures of piracy.

In the spirit of Do It Yourself Dada, we urge you to come, construct and be photographed with your own found-object sculpture. (We provide the pieces, you put them together). Come play the dada game “This belongs in a Museum.” Our museum could be the Museum of Alternate Realities and Space Travel or the Museum of Totems and Sexual Magic. (Bring a common household object and explain its complex function). Do not miss the dada seance; it will be visited by Tristan Tzara, Hugo Ball, and —or maybe being Chicago, it might be Memphis Minnie, John Dillinger and Black Hawk.

Penelope Rosemont, editor of Surrealist Women: An International Anthology, friend of two of the most celebrated dadaists André Breton and Man Ray (who else can make that claim), will give a talk and tour of the works. Celebrate dada Halloween, come dressed as the Addams family, bring your Frankenstein and Dracula dolls or puppets. It’ll be a Monster Mash!

Organized by the Chicago Surrealist Group, the Friends of Dada, with other outstanding works and contributors. And participating in the Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival organized by the Borderbend Art Collective.

Events and dates will be posted at the end of September.