Battle of the Nihilists

When the Dada retrospective show first opened at a Paris Left Bank gallery, the spirit of the good old days was sadly lacking. The show did not take place in a cellar with the lights turned out. Nobody ate matches, meowed or loudly counted the pearls of visiting dowagers. No Dadaist proclaimed to the public: "Before going down among you to pull out your decaying teeth, before shellacking you with passion, we warn you: we are murderers." There weren't even any fights.

Dada, the yeasty nihilistic movement of post-World War I days, seemed tired and tattered, its once-youthful stars well past middle age. Even the exhibits had lost most of their punch--Man Ray's ticking metronome with a staring eye impaled on the blade, entitled Object to Destroy; Marcel Duchamp's bearded and mustachioed version of the Mona Lisa; a mirror into which visitors peered until they saw the title, Portrait of an Imbecile.

But the show was less than a week old when something like the excitement of the '20s erupted. Storming the gallery, a band of young, self-styled "reactionary nihilist intellectuals" who call themselves the Jarivistes flung handbills riotously into the gallery. "We Jarivistes advise the Dadaists, surrealists and consorts that the reign of minus is over . . . Long live poetry!" Then, grabbing Object to Destroy, they were gone--but with Dadaist Man Ray puffing after them, crying: "They're stealing my painting!" Not far from the gallery, the Jarivistes stopped and set down the one-eyed metronome. One of them hauled out a pistol, took aim and fired, destroying Object to Destroy. At that point the police appeared, late but ardent.

The Jarivistes readily announced that they "are not surrealists but sure realists," not a movement but "motion itself, perpetual motion." To their objections to Dada, Man Ray wearily noted: "These things were done 40 years ago. You are demonstrating against history." A police official mused: "Why shoot it?" But last week, as visitors flocked to the show, Tristan Tzara, the grand old man of Dada, was delighted. "Isn't it wonderful?" he murmured nostalgically.

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