Dada @ MoMA...The late Dada of Romare Bearden?

I recently saw the Dada show at the Museum of Modern Art. I was intrigued by the similarities of much of the "Dada" collage and photomontage to the work of Romare Bearden. Of course I'd been aware that Dadaists created photomontage and collage, forms at which Bearden became a (perhaps the) master. I did not know the similarities between him and them were so striking or were spread out across so many pieces. I am almost tempted to call Bearden a "late Dadaist". "But such titles don't mean anything!" Of course they don't, but this an interesting thought excercise. Besides, there are some interesting shared philosophical points (e.g., distrust of psychoanalysis).

Certainly there are important differences. Hannah Hoch is the Dada collagist whose work Bearden's early collage (late 60's) most closely (and strikingly) resembles in its arrangement of images and typical color schemes. Hoch was using collage to critique the government of the Weimar Republic (and capitalism in general). (How quaint critique of Weimar seems. ...Surely they did not realize how 'good' a deal it was at the time.) Bearden, on the other hand, was using collage to create a kalleidescope of African American life (street scenes in Harlem, rituals of life in the south, etc.). (Bearden's photomontage, though not expressly political, had more political import than his collage.)

And yet...despite the different political arrangements that Bearden and the Dadaists lived under, despite their (professed) anti-art stance which does not at all jive with Bearden's views, a direct influence is discernable.

George Grosz was included in the MoMA show. I had not ever thought of him as a Dadaist before. He was indeed associated with the movement for a time. (I certainly did not associate Grosz with Dada [and the cliche of its touting of nonsense] because of what he was later known to stand for: a more serious idea of political critique through fine art.) Anyhow, Grosz later came to America in the 1930's. Young Bearden, who had recently been an editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American, was to study with him at the Art Students League. Two of Grosz's pieces included in the show look like they could've been definite influences on Bearden: Panorama and Victim of Society/Remember Uncle August, the Unhappy Inventor.

A quick final note: Bearden's only sculpture, Mauritius(1969) would not look completely out of place in the Dada show.