Inventing Dada

Speaker: Eugenio Carmona

Eugenio Carmona, professor of the History of Art at the Universidad de Málaga, gave the first in a series of lectures on Sophie Taeuber-Arp and her time. On the occasion of the exhibition Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Avant-garde Pathways, the purpose of the lectures was to place this fascinating artist’s work within the historical and artistic context in which it appeared.

In this first lecture, Carmona examined the origins of Dada, a movement which was created in Zurich during the second decade of the 20th century, and in which Taeuber-Arp played an active role. Dadaists stood for art that was free, spontaneous and immediate, and devoid of convention or logic. Dada was expressed in a variety of forms - painting, dance and literature - and frequently found its perfect venue in cabarets and art galleries.

Eugenio Carmona Mato is one of Spain’s leading specialists in Avant-Garde art. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), as well as a member of the Andalusian Committee on Museums. His publications include the catalogues Arte spagnola anni ‘50-‘70 (2000), Francisco Bores, dibujos: colecciones del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (2000) and Siglo XX en la Málaga de Picasso (2006) and he is the author of a number of books: José Moreno Villa y los orígenes de las vanguardias artísticas en España (1909-1936) (1985), Schola Cordis (1985), Las metamorfosis de la fiesta: el mito taurino en la obra gráfica de Picasso (1988), and Caravaggio (2005).

With the collaboration of the Universidad de Málaga.