Da Da (3 cents)

The Da Da movement wast he direct result of the destruction of European society during World War I. Starting in about 1917 and lasting no more than 7 or 8 years, the Da Da artists went in entirely new directions. Even the name Da Da was a conscious creation, evoking a baby, a new start, the Russian word for yes, and so forth.

The exhibit at the National Gallery is interestingly organized by city: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York and Paris. Starting in neutral Switzerland with Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Sophie Taeuber, Francis Picabia, Christian Schad and Otto van Rees, to moved to John Heartfield (Herzfeld), Otto Dix, Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann and George Grosz in Berlin, Kurt Schwitters in Hannover, Max Ernst in Cologne, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York, and - after the war - many of these in Paris.

Nonrepresentational painting, sculpture, collage. And there is the more polished, somewhat cartoonish drawing of George Grosz, perhaps the most appealing of all these artists.

To what good was all of this? It may have shown disgust and estrangement from society, but it offered no solutions. As Grosz said with regard to his uncle: "Uncle August had these crazy ideas, and what became of them? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Instead of bringing something in, it only cost money and in the end he had to be admitted to a mental hospital."

So be it with Da Da?