In the summer of 2016, MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art in New York) opened its exhibition Dadaglobe Reconstructed which brought together over 100 works created for Tristan Tzara’s planned but unrealised ambitious anthology of Dada. This publication, to be called Dadaglobe, aimed to document the movement’s international activities and existing works, as well as serve as a call for new contributions. Tzara invited around 50 artists from 10 countries to submit work to this anthology, which he broke down into four categories: original drawings, photographic self-portraits, photographs of artworks, and layouts for new book pages.
Organized by Adrian Sudhalter, Guest Curator, and Samantha Friedman, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints at MoMA, the exhibition brought together these artworks and relevant archival materials in an attempt to reconstruct Tzara’s great project and consider it’s aim to address issues around the reproduction of art and Dada’s global appeal – concerns we are also addressing in this project TAKE DADA SERIOUSLY (it’s worth it?).
As part of the museum’s education programming, MoMA has a specific and multifaceted approach for its young people’s programming. There are several levels of involvement for young people from all over New York City to participate in offered by MoMA Teens: from In the Making art classes, the Cross-Museum Collective in partnership with MoMA PS1, to the most involved level, the Digital Advisory Board (DAB), made up of MoMA Teens alumni. With guidance from Calder Zwicky, Assistant Director of Teen and Community Partnerships, and Samantha Friedman, DAB prepared its own response and tribute to MoMA’s Dadaglobe: Reconstructed exhibition.
As the Digital Advisory Board, our objective was not to merely recreate Dadaglobe art for contemporary times, but to utilize the blunt, untainted lens of Dada to perceive those times—and perhaps even criticize them. For it seems as long as the Earth continues to turn, the timeless doctrine of Dada will always endure, illuminating our lives.
– Jo-Anne Naarendorp
Read Jo-Anne Naarendorp’s full account of this project here.
Watch all six episodes of the MoMA Teens Digital Advisory Board Dadaglobe series below:
Digital Advisory Board 2016 members: Jo-Anne Naarendorp, Jocelyn Aldaz, Ashley Aviles, Kevin Cruz, Cara Hernandez, Anatola Pabst, Oksana Pligina, and Yvonne Zagzag.
MoMA Staff who worked on this project: Calder Zwicky, Eva Kozanecka, Ali Santana, and Samantha Friedman.
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