Various forms of art emerged in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, many of which represented new ideas and attempted to be regarded as different to and better than what was before. These art movements rejected the traditional customs, beliefs, and practices of the art that came before it, cleaning the slate in order to begin again. Many artistic movements undertook this challenge to reinvent the arts, often attempting to reject societal, political, or cultural values, although these values often conflict. The movements of Dada, Punk, and Futurism exhibit similarities in their rejection of past traditions, though they differ in the ways that they express their rejection and their ideals. These similarities can be seen through examples …show more content…
The first movement in discussion which is typified by the rejection of tradition is Dadaism. Emerging in reaction to World War I, Dada was an anti-art movement which rejected the social, political, and cultural values of the capitalist society, instead, choosing to express “nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protests” through their art. Dadaist artists embraced elements of “art, music, poetry, theatre, dance, and politics” in order to express their dissatisfaction with violence, war, and nationalism (Surfeitt, 2011). Dada was a movement known for being more of a “state of mind rather than a literary or artistic movement”, mocking “all established values, all traditional notions of good taste in art and literature” (Honour & Fleming, 1982). Although Dada artists were united in their “anarchic, nihilistic, and disruptive” ideals, they had no unifying style, instead, choosing to attack traditional values with “irrational attitudes” and provoke “conservative complacency with outrageous statements and actions” (Honour & Fleming, 1982) (Surfeitt, 2011). Even the name Dada, meaning “baby-talk”, rejects tradition as it denies the value of art. An example of a well-known Dadaist artist whose