Dada

Dada began in Zurich and became an international movement. Or non-movement .Dada had only one rule: Never follow any known rules. Dada was made to provoke and shock the viewer. If its art couldn’t offend traditionalists .Dada art is senseless to the point of being almost crazy. Almost all of the people who created it were very serious. Abstraction and Expressionism were the main influences on Dada, followed by Cubism and, to a lesser extent, Futurism. There was no main medium in Dadaist art. All things from geometric carpets to glass to plaster were accepted. It's worth noting, that collection, collage, photomontage and the use for objects which were already made, all were accepted because of their use in Dada art. For something that meant nothing, a lot of things grew from Dada. Dada influenced many trends in the visual arts but the best-known movement Dada was responsible for is Surrealism. Dada self-destructed when it was becoming "acceptable".

The Dadaists used a form of shock art and pushed mild rudeness, visual jokes and everyday objects renamed as "art" into the public eye. He performed one of the most famous outrages by painting a moustache on a copy of the Mona Lisa and proudly displaying his sculpture entitled Fountain. 

Mona Lisa

L.H.O.O.Q a cheap postcard-sized reproduction of the Mona Lisa which Duchamp drew a mustache and a goatee. The “readymade” done in 1919, is one of the most known act of degrading a famous work of art. The title when pronounced in French, puns the frase “Elle a chaud au cul”

Fountain

A man of great humour and wit, Duchamp loved jokes and challenging others to think beyond unoriginal wisdom. He is best known for introducing the ready-made (or “found”) object into visual art, co-founding Dada and being associated with the Surrealists. Perhaps his greatest contribution, is that he almost alone, shifted the focus of art away from the strictly visual and onto the mental. Duchamp had a large impact on Contemporary Art.

Shelly Esaak. 2014. Art History. [ONLINE] Available at:http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namesdd/p/duchamp.htm. [Accessed 21 May 14].