Generation Dada : the Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World War /

In a well-researched, detailed examination of the Berlin avant-garde in the context of WW I, White (Univ. of York, UK) offers a fresh analysis of the key events and personal relationships that helped form the artistic practices of some of the central figures of the German Dada movement. In an informative but refreshingly accessible style, the author manages to pay close attention to the intricacies of cultural and historical context as well as the formal elements of the works themselves (as, for example, in insightful interpretations of the drawings of George Grosz), demonstrating a keen eye for the relationship between content and form. The text is well illustrated (with both artwork and historical photography) and, in a charming use of header typefaces and layout, offers a delightfully subtle homage to the bold graphic design aesthetic German Dadaists formulated. As such, this study likely will become an indispensable resource for scholars and advanced students of Dada, German art and culture, and early-20th-century modernism. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-level undergraduates and above. M. R. Freeman Western Oregon University

White (art history, Univ. of York; De Stijl and Dutch Modernism) successfully documents the social relationships among the principal members of Berlin's Club Dada, focusing on their youth, their anti-art sentiments, their early 20th-century protest against the pacifist expressionists, and how they created their own complex brand for posterity. This is done through biographical and cultural lenses, synthesizing well-documented primary sources about these Berlin avant-garde artists of the World War I era who were the perpetrators of photomontage, pulp ephemera, and performance art while ridiculing the mad world around them. The author brings a fresh look, explicating representative images. He alludes to other scholars to sum up, advance, and support his own theories. This is a useful, more detailed companion to Jacqueline Strecker's The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 1910-37. The challenge for the reader is that the author's professorial lecture-prose is uneven, given to sudden switches to first--person narration. This makes it hard to warm up to the subject just for fun. But then, again, isn't that a bit dada? VERDICT Lofty in tone and substance, this is recommended only for the postsecondary student, academician, or true dada aficionado.--Marianne Laino Sade, Maryland Inst. Coll. of Art Lib., Baltimore (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.