CANNIBALIZING THE CANON: DADA TECHNIQUES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE
For more than twenty-five years, a comprehensive work on the history of Dada in East-Central Europe has not been published. The significant academic publisher, Brill, has just released the volume titled "Cannibalizing the Canon: Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe," which discusses the issue through twenty-four studies ranging from the cabarets of Bucharest to the Austrian alternative/pseudo-scientific scene, from dance to visual arts to costume design. The book argues that the involvement of East-Central European artists was an indispensable part of the universal history of Dada. Their participation was not limited to the reception of Dada influences. Instead, we can speak of significant reinterpretations, subversions, and uses – the metaphorical “cannibalizing” of Dada and other "Western" avant-garde movements.
The book grew out of a conference held at the Kassák Museum in 2016, organized in collaboration with the Institute of Literary Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HUN-REN). The conference featured internationally recognized experts in Dada research from New York to Prague, as well as early-career researchers. The volume is a significantly expanded version of this event, accompanied by rich illustrative material, including previously unknown documents, publications, and artworks.
The presence of the Kassák Museum team is significant in the book: Merse Pál Szeredi and Gábor Dobó (Kassák Museum) co-edited with Oliver A. I. Botar, a Canadian professor and with Irina Denischenko, a lecturer at Georgetown University, who regularly conducted research and lectured at the museum during her Fulbright scholarship. Sára Bagdi, a young researcher at the museum, co-authors a chapter with art historian Judit Galácz.
The book will have several online presentations, and we will soon provide updates on this matter.
The volume is accessible at the Kassák Museum library.
For more information, please visit the publisher's website.
Oliver A. I. Botar, Irina M. Denischenko, Gábor Dobó, Merse Pál Szeredi (eds.), Cannibalizing the Canon. Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2024, ISBN: 978-90-04-52674-7, 633 p. Review by Ioana Onescu, Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies anf Theory, 2024. július 31.