Birth of Neo-Dada

While not formally named until the early 1960s by Barbara Rose, we consider the birth of Neo-Dada to have occurred in 1952 with John Cage’s Theater Piece No. 1. This seminal, multi-media, collaborative work of performance art involved unscripted poetry, music and Robert Rauschenberg’s White Painting (1951), four panels of which hung above the performers. These elements would all become hallmarks of the Neo-Dada movement in the coming years. Paving the way for Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism, the term Neo-Dadaism was applied to the works of artists such as Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Allan Kaprow. Marcel Duchamp’s arrival in New York and increasing influence can partially explain the movement’s genesis. Neo-Dada artists are known for their usage of mass media, found objects and performance. Most importantly for generative art, Neo-Dada was known for its embrace of chance, from Kaprow (performance) to Cunningham (dance) and Cage (music). In this sense, Neo-Dada was profoundly impactful on contemporary generative art. It was also a predecessor to the digital mass media art of the ’80s and ’90s, which, according to Casey Reas was one of the pre-conditions for NFTs.