I love dada, I support it entirely. But dadaists themselves seem kind of tiresome to be around. Dead founding dadaists, on the other hand, we could hang out all day.
If I understand the history correctly, Francis Picabia painted this signboard which André Breton wore at the Festival Dada held on 27 March, 1920 at the Theatre de l’oeuvre. The quote comes from Picabia’s Manifeste Cannibale, which Breton read that night in the dark: “For you to love something, you must have seen and heard it for a long time, you idiots.”
Ernest T. Bande d’Idiots, apres Picabia, 1985, acrylic on cardboard, collection FRAC Limousin
agnès b. says that Picabia took the photo, though the succession André Breton is not so sure. b. has reissued a 2004 t-shirt with the photo printed on it. b. also owns one of three replicas of the sign painted in 1985 by Ernest T., a 73-yo pseudonymous French artist whose dada appropriationist practice inspired the title of this post. Another is in the collection of the FRAC Limousin, which gave Ernest T. a retrospective in 2001. [pdf checklist].
That leaves one unaccounted for, but maybe I’ll just make it myself. Ernest doesn’t seem to have tried to guess the colors Picabia used anyway. That creme & greige palette does not strike me as very Festival Dada.
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the making of, by greg allen