Product Review

This volume of 12 essays fills a broad gap in Modernist art history. Taken together, these case studies on artists and concepts present Dada as a coherent movement with a set of operating principles. Among the “ tactics” elaborated are the hyperbolic mimicry of dominant social and linguistic conventions, the performance of gender and other aspects of identity, the usurpation of the modes of a new media culture and the marketplace, and the recycling of history and memory in a world traumatized by war. The Dada Seminars developed out of a series held by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, in advance of 2005's major traveling exhibition on international Dada. Contributors include George Baker, T.J. Demos, Leah Dickerman, Uwe Fleckner, Hal Foster, Amelia Jones, David Joselit, Marcella Lista, Helen Molesworth, Arnauld Pierre, Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Matthew S. Witkovsky.