0:00:04.770,0:00:07.170
STEVEN ZUCKER: We're at the[br]Museum of Modern Art looking

0:00:07.170,0:00:09.890
at a really famous collage.

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It's Jean Arp, sometimes[br]known as Hans Arp.

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It's an untitled[br]object, but it's always

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known as Collage[br]with Squares Arranged

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According to the Laws of Chance.

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And that's exactly what it is.

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It's a gray piece of[br]paper, construction paper,

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almost children's[br]construction paper.

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And it's got some cream colored[br]and almost denim blue colored

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squares that have been[br]ripped into these shapes

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and then scattered[br]on the surface.

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BETH HARRIS: What strikes me[br]is what year we're at, which is

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1916 and '17's,[br]sort of at the end--

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STEVEN ZUCKER: We're right[br]in the middle of the war--

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BETH HARRIS: --of the First,

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --or[br]the end, right.

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BETH HARRIS: --middle end[br]of the First World War.

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But what strikes me is how far[br]we've come from Les Demoiselles

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d'Avignon, which is 1907.

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And really how radical--

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --Ten years.

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BETH HARRIS: --yeah, but how[br]radical Dada was for a time.

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We have a completely[br]abstract work.

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We have it not arranged with[br]any kind of artistic intention.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It really[br]begins to play fast and loose

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with the very definition[br]of what a work of art is.

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BETH HARRIS: Yes, absolutely.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It sort[br]of rips at the heart

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of what our definition[br]is historically.

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BETH HARRIS: It's[br]not self-expression.

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It's not skill.

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It's not an expression[br]of the unconscious,

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even, like surrealism[br]would claim later.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: So it's[br]actually in some ways

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still really[br]challenging in that--

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BETH HARRIS: It is.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --in[br]that we look at painting

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for the decisions of the artist.

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And here that's been given up.

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BETH HARRIS: Completely.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It is a[br]kind of real anti-art.

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It's a--

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BETH HARRIS: It is[br]a real anti-art.

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STEVEN ZUCKER:[br]--real destruction

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of the very[br]foundation with which

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we understand how to deal with

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BETH HARRIS: It is.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --an[br]object in space.

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BETH HARRIS: And,[br]it still is, right.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: And it's[br]an extraordinary thing.

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So how can we[br]understand this though,

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in the context of the war?

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You mentioned that[br]this was 1916, 1917.

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BETH HARRIS: Yes.

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STEVEN ZUCKER:[br]The war is raging.

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It's unprecedented.

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But this is being[br]made in Zurich.

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You know, Arp was one of the[br]founders of the Zurich Dada

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movement, and Zurich, of[br]course, is a neutral--

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BETH HARRIS: Country.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It's--

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BETH HARRIS: Switzerland.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --in Switzerland,[br]a neutral country, right?

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So I guess I'm just[br]wondering, where

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is the relationship between[br]this kind of aggression

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against the traditions of[br]art and the violence that's

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taking place across Europe.

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BETH HARRIS: Well, I think[br]the answer that's usually

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given to that is that[br]this sort of emphasis

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on rational and on human reason[br]was part of bourgeois culture

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that had created

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STEVEN ZUCKER: The violence.

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BETH HARRIS: The violence[br]and the irrationalness

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of World War I. But[br]what strikes me also

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is just the irrationality[br]people-- because this

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is something created according[br]to the laws of chance.

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And people are being[br]called to the war.

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They're being drafted.

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They're sent to the front lines.

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They live, they[br]die, they suffer.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It[br]was all chance.

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BETH HARRIS: They get[br]legs and limbs amputated,

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all basically on a[br]roll of the dice.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: Yeah.

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And Arp would have seen that.

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The number of veterans[br]that came back--

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BETH HARRIS: Everyone saw it.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --who[br]were deformed, who had--

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BETH HARRIS: Post-traumatic[br]stress syndrome.

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STEVEN ZUCKER: --limbs blasted,[br]who had been exposed to gas

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and been disfigured,[br]was extraordinary.

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And then those that[br]came back unscathed.

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BETH HARRIS: Right, what[br]rules are there in life?

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Where is the rationality[br]for what happens to who

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for what reason?

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STEVEN ZUCKER: It actually[br]makes the absurdity of this

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object somehow[br]much more profound.

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BETH HARRIS: Yep.