ABSURD
I’ve been thinking about the dadaists all week, since our last lecture. My understanding of them is that they produced absurd art as a reaction to the absurdity of the war. I’ve been wondering why there is no movement as strong as this around at the moment, as there are many absurd global practices going on. Someone asked after the lecture whether we have all been neutralised and it seems that we have. I saw a trailer to the film ‘the age of stupid’ yesterday. This film is set in 2055 and the main protagonist wonders why we didn’t try to stop global warming now.
I’m wondering whether I should only make absurd art.
Here is a dada poem discovered on my foundation course which has been on my studio wall for many years.
Kurt Schwitters
To Anna Blume
You, oh you, beloved of my twenty-seven senses, I love ya! – You thine thou yours, I you, you me. – Us? This (incidentally) does not belong here. Who are you, countless woman? You are - are you? – People say you are – let them say it, they don’t know where the steeple is. You wear a hat on your feet and stand on your hands, on your hands you walk. Hello, your red clothes, sawed into white pleats. Red I love, Anna Blume, red I love ya! – You thine thou yours, I you, you me. – Us? That (incidentally) belongs in the cold embers. Red flower, red Anna Blume, what are people saying? Prize question: 1. Anna Blume has a bird. 2. Anna Blume is red. 3. What color is the bird? Blue is the color of your yellow hair. Red is the cooing of your green bird. You plain girl in an everyday dress, you dear green animal, I love ya! – You thine thou yours, I you, you me – us? That (incidentally) belongs in the ember box. Anna Blume! Anna, a-n-n-a, I am dripping your name. Your name drips like soft suet. Do you know, Anna, do you know yet? You can also be read from back to front, and you, you most marvelous creature of them all, you are from the back as you are from the front:a-n-n-a.« Suet drips caress my back. Anna Blume, you droppy animal, I love ya!
An Anna Blume
