The Aftermath and the Aftermath's Aftermath of Dada in the Low Countries
The Import of Nothing. How Dada Came, Saw and Vanished in the Low Countries (1915-1929) is the seventh volume in the series ‘Crisis and the Arts: The History of Dada’. The author, Hubert van den Berg, points out in its first chapter that the denomination ‘Dada in the Low Countries’ has to be treated with caution, not as a ‘new fixed denomination’ but as ‘only a temporary focus for the duration of the following narrative’. There are two reasons for this caveat. Firstly, such terms as Dada Belgium and Dada the Netherlands might incorrectly imply that Dada in these countries was a comparable phenomenon to Dada Zurich, Dada Berlin or Dada Hanover, while Van den Berg's aim in this book is precisely to demonstrate that in the Low Countries Dada was only a marginal phenomenon. Secondly, the geographical organisation of the series might tend to encourage the reader to see the Dada movement in the Low Countries as a homogeneous whole. But Van den Berg points out that the backgrounds in the Netherlands and Belgium/Flanders were so different that histories of their respective Dada movements produce different narratives. The book draws attention to both the parallels and the differences between Dutch and Belgian followers of Dada. Strangely enough, the first periodical to launch Dada in the Netherlands, Revue du feu, was a Belgian-Dutch project led by Arthur Pétronio, who lived in Brussels.
Although the attraction of Dada was for the most part a highly individual matter, Van den Berg distinguishes two periods. The first was around 1919-1920, the time when Dadaism branched out from Zurich and Berlin to Paris, New York and Cologne. The Belgian figures of this initial period are the writers Clément Pansaers, Paul van Ostaijen and the Antwerp periodical Ça Ira, while the first Dutch Dadaists are the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld, the artist Paul Citroen and, particularly, Theo van Doesburg, head of the periodical De Stijl. Dadaism did not meet with any real response, however, until early in 1923, when Kurt Schwitters and Van Doesburg went on a two-month tour of the Netherlands. But their Dada Tour also marked the last international manifestation of Dada, which at the same time indicates that the activities in the Low Countries have to be seen as an ‘aftermath’ of the historical Dada movement. In the mid 1920s it is possible to distinguish a second wave of Dadaism - ‘The aftermath of the aftermath’ - although it is less pronounced. The avant-garde group De Ploeg from Groningen, of which Hendrik Werkman was the most important member, then displayed a ‘certain reference to Dadaism’, as did the Antwerp periodical Het Overzicht, run by Michel Seuphor (alias Ferdinand Berckelaers). Each of the four most important tenors of Dadaism from the Low Countries: Clément Pansaers, Theo van Doesburg, Paul van Ostaijen and Kurt Schwitters - is given a whole chapter to himself; they also form the principal part of the book.
Unlike the Dada movement in Germany, Switzerland, France etc., what typifies the Netherlands and Belgium is that it is impossible to speak of a movement or group. There, unlike in Zurich or Berlin - and subsequently Geneva, Cologne and New York - there was no sign of any organisational framework, and consequently fewer appearances and events. When an artist did seek a closer approach, it was usually a question of ‘individual appropriations and incidental recuperations’. A direct result of this was that - with the exception of the Dada campaign of Van Doesburg and Schwitters - in practice the movement expressed itself mainly in written form - in manifestoes, periodicals and Dadaist articles and collages.
Those who sought closer relations with Dadaism did not do so unconditionally and unrestrictedly, as the example of Theo van Doesburg clearly illustrates. Under the pseudonym I.K. Bonset he manifested himself as a Dadaist of the first water; under his own name he revealed himself more frequently as a constructivist than a Dadaist. The ambivalent attitude of Van Ostaijen, who did not call himself a Dadaist but did use Dadaist techniques and elements (especially in his collection Occupied City - Bezette Stad, 1921) also illustrates the distanced attitude adopted by the avant-garde scene.
Van den Berg tries to explain in various ways why the avant-garde, and especially Dadaism, did not get off the ground in the Netherlands and Belgium, but