Dada Economy

Shows why and how the Dadaists' conception of nonsense-their central aesthetic principle-is deeply indebted to the economic notion of inflation. Dada is one of the most iconic avant-garde movements in literary, visual, and performative art. This book reveals its complex relationship to the German economy during and after the First World War. The Dadaists formed during an economic downturn that began in 1914, accelerated with the revolutionary uprisings of 1918, and culminated in the catastrophic hyperinflation of 1923. The Reichsmark's collapse brought ruin to many and sudden, obscene wealth to a few. The Dadaists saw a world turned upside down and responded in kind. In a reality where the economy had already become Dada, they enshrined nonsense as their aesthetic ideal. Dada Economy shows why and how the Dadaists' conception of nonsense is deeply indebted to the economic notion of inflation. The works of Johannes Baader, Emmy Hennings, Hugo Ball, Kurt Schwitters, and Hannah Höch - each discussed in dedicated chapters, framed by a comprehensive introduction and a brief conclusion - display a new commitment to an economic aesthetic. Their understanding of life as a work of art and art as a way of life, however, upends the transactional logic of economic exchange.