Carl Heyward on Dada
2016 marks the 100th year anniversary of the Dada movement, which began in Zurich in 1916. The original Dadaists sought to create anti-art which shocked, ridiculed and challenged the status quo in response to the politics that fueled World War I. Carl Heyward is the founder of GAP(Global Arts Project) and the organizer of GAP’s San Francisco International Arts Festival participation. I asked Carl a few questions about the GAP Dada connection in a recent cyber interview.
HAF: When did your involvement with the Dada movement begin?
CH: I have been aware of principals of the Dada art movement since my youth when I struggled to make sense of abstract art, eschewing art history, which led to the discovery of Surrealism which was a no-brainer because it resonated with my dreams prior to any intellectual or academic introduction to the Freudian party line. When I discovered Duchamp, Bearden, Cornell and Man Ray, all those who celebrated and elevated the ordinary right up to Warhol and his media-savvy recapitulation of the daily news, so to speak, I felt “at home” or at least an affinity with these artists outside of the context of their direct or extrapolated affinity or connection with the Dada movement.
HAF: How did GAP’s participation in SFIAF come about?
The curators Matt McKinley and Hanna Regev became aware of GAP activity and recognized a kinship in our practice and invited us to participate in a festival that is usually performance heavy meaning dance. The Dada connection, while not necessarily conscious is certainly contained in our efforts and we seemed a good fit though not affiliated with most of the neo-DADA ” purists”.
HAF: What significance does the dunce cap have with your installation?
CH: The GAP installation at SF International Arts Festival and our segment DADA HERE AND NOW needed a simple symbol with universal identification that reflected literal usage by the original Dadaists but also something that triggered a connection with contemporary ( even nostalgic or archaic ) identification of seeking, being wrong, being ostracized, being excluded both literally and philosophically; images of Hugo Ball and the head wear at Dada soirees came to mind. What better Alfred E Newman image of our awe and anxiety, uncertainty and cowardice than the funnel of knowledge, the old fashioned dunce cap ?
HAF: This is a multiple question presented by SFIAF curators:
Can art successfully challenge a fixed mindset? Is dialogue generated by provocative art possible and can it lead to change, co- existence, tolerance, and cooperation? Can art inspired by Dadaism be important or relevant today, or is it something that was of its time?
CH: Any mode, any sincere insistent form of communication can change a mindset…give comfort to the uncomfortable, to paraphrase an old saw. If it is not the function of art to change minds and hearts it certainly has the mission to confront those who engender harmful, limiting, rigid notions of what art or the simple experience of life should be about; of what it might contain.
HAF: Europe was apparently in a different place in regards to awareness and proactive fortitude. The US on the other hand produced racially charged “Birth of a Nation” D.W Griffith. Racial disparity was present during the onset of Dada and still is present in this country. What is your assessment on how the Dada movement would handle racism?
CH: Europe is as racist as any corner of the US, it is naive to think otherwise. Birth of a Nation flourished in a global atmosphere of fascination with Black culture as threat, novelty and fantasy, a misplaced ill informed pat on the back is no different than a kick in the ass if its intention is in error. Europe demonstrates on a daily basis that it is just as intolerant and fearful for its racial power status quo. Human beings fear other human beings and it is only a matter of degree that these fears are manifest and find expression in law, mob and riot or attitude or institutionalization of these fears via custom, law, tacit agreement or internal policy.