Field Journal 6
Chapters 13-15 Review
Have you ever seen a bumper sticker that had a black line drawing of an Asian man with stereotypical slant eyes, buck teeth and a coolie hat sitting behind a steering wheel with the red circle around the drawing and the red slash through the circle? I've seen it and laughed at first but then it irked me a little since, hey, I'm Asian and I resemble that remark....I mean....I resent that remark..I think that is an example of contemporary dadaism. Someone must have had many encounters with bad driving Asian people in order to create this bumper sticker art. I know I've witnessed many times of bad Asian driving. I also know that when I see someone making a dangerous driving move, I try to look at the driver to verify if they are Asian or not. Darn it, usually, they are Asian. As dadaism goes, it represents moods of the times.
Anyway, Dadaism was a movement that was born from the reaction to the horrors of World War I. Believing that the root of the problem stemmed from bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests, Dadaism sought to reject the reason and logic of a society that led them to war, and instead embrace chaos and irrationality expressing it through art that rejected the many of the prevailing art standards at the time. Seeing it in Megs History of Graphic Design left a powerful impression on me, especially Heartfield's anti-Nazi photo montages.
Dadaism is a vehicle in which people can express their opposition through art. Through this, they can reach people and communicate their views to others and perhaps gain followers, like the 2012 election for example.
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