Modern Art and Scientific Thought
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Jump to navigationJump to searchRichardson, John Adkins. Modern Art and Scientific Thought. Urbana, IL: U of Illinois P, 1971.
Ch. 6, "Conformity as Rebellion—Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism," discusses the connection between World War I and the formation of Dada: not only the way in which "modern" society treated individuals like machines, but also the peculiarly intricate and often faintly ridiculous mechanical nature of the actual machines used in that war. The "plethora of useless mechanisms and displaced appliances in Dada art exudes a kind of gallows humor" (140). The last chapter notes Claes Oldenburg's use of household technology to comment upon "an implied impotence of industrial society" (169).
