The Growing Charm Of Dada | Alfred Brendel | New York Review of Books | 13th October 2016

Dada was an attitude, more than a school or a doctrine. It began as entertainment before widening and deepening into art. Its founders in 1916 Vienna saw frivolity as a means of defying the “butchery” of World War One. They wanted laughter. “Traditionalists see Dadaists as silly people. To a degree, they are right. Silliness was liberating from the constraints of reason. Silliness has the potential to provoke laughter. To Dadaists, Charlie Chaplin was the greatest artist in the world”