An avant garde art movement in Europe during the first World War, Dada was formed largely in response to the previously unseen horrors of the war. Dada frequently employed absurdist, even nonsensical, humor towards satirical means—through which artists created paintings, sculptures, performances, collage, and much more. The movement began at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, a nightclub where many Dada artists staged their first pieces of performance art, wrote anti-war poetry, and created paintings and collages. With the understanding that reason and rationality caused the outbreak of WWI, Dada artists instead embraced the absurd. They termed their work anti-art and rejected the previously held ideals associated with art. One of the most outspoken members of the Dada movement, Marcel Duchamp undermined even the idea of the artist’s role in the production of art. He created the Readymade—an industrially produced object that became art by virtue of the artist’s declaration. This innovative use of found objects radically changed the art world, expanding the potential of art making around the world. Dada artists also used the medium of collage in new and interesting ways—Hans Arp created collages by dropping squares of paper onto a larger sheet, and gluing them in place. Other artists associated with Dada include Hugo Ball, Hannah Hoch, Tristan Tzara, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Kurt Schwitters.

Dada continues to be incredibly influential for contemporary artists, exemplified by the mid-twentieth century movement known as Neo-Dada—which included artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and George Brecht—and employed some of the same radical philosophies as its antecedent. Conceptual art also owes a debt to Dada, which laid the groundwork for the notion that an idea, not the artist or material, could be the driving force behind a work of art.