1 00:00:04,770 --> 00:00:07,170 STEVEN ZUCKER: We're at the Museum of Modern Art looking 2 00:00:07,170 --> 00:00:09,890 at a really famous collage. 3 00:00:09,890 --> 00:00:12,934 It's Jean Arp, sometimes known as Hans Arp. 4 00:00:12,934 --> 00:00:14,630 It's an untitled object, but it's always 5 00:00:14,630 --> 00:00:17,100 known as Collage with Squares Arranged 6 00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:18,576 According to the Laws of Chance. 7 00:00:18,576 --> 00:00:20,052 And that's exactly what it is. 8 00:00:20,052 --> 00:00:23,988 It's a gray piece of paper, construction paper, 9 00:00:23,988 --> 00:00:25,960 almost children's construction paper. 10 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:30,930 And it's got some cream colored and almost denim blue colored 11 00:00:30,930 --> 00:00:33,588 squares that have been ripped into these shapes 12 00:00:33,588 --> 00:00:35,878 and then scattered on the surface. 13 00:00:35,878 --> 00:00:39,551 BETH HARRIS: What strikes me is what year we're at, which is 14 00:00:39,551 --> 00:00:41,630 1916 and '17's, sort of at the end-- 15 00:00:41,630 --> 00:00:42,092 STEVEN ZUCKER: We're right in the middle of the war-- 16 00:00:42,092 --> 00:00:42,554 BETH HARRIS: --of the First, 17 00:00:42,554 --> 00:00:43,478 STEVEN ZUCKER: --or the end, right. 18 00:00:43,478 --> 00:00:45,519 BETH HARRIS: --middle end of the First World War. 19 00:00:45,519 --> 00:00:49,850 But what strikes me is how far we've come from Les Demoiselles 20 00:00:49,850 --> 00:00:52,285 d'Avignon, which is 1907. 21 00:00:52,285 --> 00:00:53,595 And really how radical-- 22 00:00:53,595 --> 00:00:54,720 STEVEN ZUCKER: --Ten years. 23 00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:59,103 BETH HARRIS: --yeah, but how radical Dada was for a time. 24 00:00:59,103 --> 00:01:02,512 We have a completely abstract work. 25 00:01:02,512 --> 00:01:07,901 We have it not arranged with any kind of artistic intention. 26 00:01:07,901 --> 00:01:10,497 STEVEN ZUCKER: It really begins to play fast and loose 27 00:01:10,497 --> 00:01:13,052 with the very definition of what a work of art is. 28 00:01:13,052 --> 00:01:14,260 BETH HARRIS: Yes, absolutely. 29 00:01:14,260 --> 00:01:15,495 STEVEN ZUCKER: It sort of rips at the heart 30 00:01:15,495 --> 00:01:17,120 of what our definition is historically. 31 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,246 BETH HARRIS: It's not self-expression. 32 00:01:19,246 --> 00:01:20,650 It's not skill. 33 00:01:20,650 --> 00:01:22,990 It's not an expression of the unconscious, 34 00:01:22,990 --> 00:01:26,380 even, like surrealism would claim later. 35 00:01:26,380 --> 00:01:29,450 STEVEN ZUCKER: So it's actually in some ways 36 00:01:29,450 --> 00:01:31,409 still really challenging in that-- 37 00:01:31,409 --> 00:01:32,200 BETH HARRIS: It is. 38 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:34,033 STEVEN ZUCKER: --in that we look at painting 39 00:01:34,033 --> 00:01:36,030 for the decisions of the artist. 40 00:01:36,030 --> 00:01:37,490 And here that's been given up. 41 00:01:37,490 --> 00:01:38,490 BETH HARRIS: Completely. 42 00:01:38,490 --> 00:01:39,966 STEVEN ZUCKER: It is a kind of real anti-art. 43 00:01:39,966 --> 00:01:40,458 It's a-- 44 00:01:40,458 --> 00:01:40,950 BETH HARRIS: It is a real anti-art. 45 00:01:40,950 --> 00:01:42,325 STEVEN ZUCKER: --real destruction 46 00:01:42,325 --> 00:01:43,902 of the very foundation with which 47 00:01:43,902 --> 00:01:45,378 we understand how to deal with 48 00:01:45,378 --> 00:01:45,880 BETH HARRIS: It is. 49 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:46,670 STEVEN ZUCKER: --an object in space. 50 00:01:46,670 --> 00:01:47,990 BETH HARRIS: And, it still is, right. 51 00:01:47,990 --> 00:01:49,948 STEVEN ZUCKER: And it's an extraordinary thing. 52 00:01:49,948 --> 00:01:51,807 So how can we understand this though, 53 00:01:51,807 --> 00:01:52,890 in the context of the war? 54 00:01:52,890 --> 00:01:55,122 You mentioned that this was 1916, 1917. 55 00:01:55,122 --> 00:01:55,830 BETH HARRIS: Yes. 56 00:01:55,830 --> 00:01:56,320 STEVEN ZUCKER: The war is raging. 57 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:57,790 It's unprecedented. 58 00:01:57,790 --> 00:02:00,262 But this is being made in Zurich. 59 00:02:00,262 --> 00:02:03,764 You know, Arp was one of the founders of the Zurich Dada 60 00:02:03,764 --> 00:02:06,194 movement, and Zurich, of course, is a neutral-- 61 00:02:06,194 --> 00:02:07,166 BETH HARRIS: Country. 62 00:02:07,166 --> 00:02:07,652 STEVEN ZUCKER: It's-- 63 00:02:07,652 --> 00:02:08,138 BETH HARRIS: Switzerland. 64 00:02:08,138 --> 00:02:10,931 STEVEN ZUCKER: --in Switzerland, a neutral country, right? 65 00:02:10,931 --> 00:02:12,430 So I guess I'm just wondering, where 66 00:02:12,430 --> 00:02:16,060 is the relationship between this kind of aggression 67 00:02:16,060 --> 00:02:20,470 against the traditions of art and the violence that's 68 00:02:20,470 --> 00:02:21,595 taking place across Europe. 69 00:02:21,595 --> 00:02:23,761 BETH HARRIS: Well, I think the answer that's usually 70 00:02:23,761 --> 00:02:25,660 given to that is that this sort of emphasis 71 00:02:25,660 --> 00:02:29,965 on rational and on human reason was part of bourgeois culture 72 00:02:29,965 --> 00:02:30,707 that had created 73 00:02:30,707 --> 00:02:31,873 STEVEN ZUCKER: The violence. 74 00:02:31,873 --> 00:02:34,360 BETH HARRIS: The violence and the irrationalness 75 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:37,420 of World War I. But what strikes me also 76 00:02:37,420 --> 00:02:40,726 is just the irrationality people-- because this 77 00:02:40,726 --> 00:02:44,600 is something created according to the laws of chance. 78 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:46,674 And people are being called to the war. 79 00:02:46,674 --> 00:02:47,590 They're being drafted. 80 00:02:47,590 --> 00:02:49,410 They're sent to the front lines. 81 00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:50,815 They live, they die, they suffer. 82 00:02:50,815 --> 00:02:52,190 STEVEN ZUCKER: It was all chance. 83 00:02:52,190 --> 00:02:54,850 BETH HARRIS: They get legs and limbs amputated, 84 00:02:54,850 --> 00:02:57,425 all basically on a roll of the dice. 85 00:02:57,425 --> 00:02:58,258 STEVEN ZUCKER: Yeah. 86 00:02:58,258 --> 00:02:59,746 And Arp would have seen that. 87 00:02:59,746 --> 00:03:01,514 The number of veterans that came back-- 88 00:03:01,514 --> 00:03:02,722 BETH HARRIS: Everyone saw it. 89 00:03:02,722 --> 00:03:04,710 STEVEN ZUCKER: --who were deformed, who had-- 90 00:03:04,710 --> 00:03:04,800 BETH HARRIS: Post-traumatic stress syndrome. 91 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:07,805 STEVEN ZUCKER: --limbs blasted, who had been exposed to gas 92 00:03:07,805 --> 00:03:09,494 and been disfigured, was extraordinary. 93 00:03:09,494 --> 00:03:11,160 And then those that came back unscathed. 94 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,480 BETH HARRIS: Right, what rules are there in life? 95 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:18,850 Where is the rationality for what happens to who 96 00:03:18,850 --> 00:03:19,880 for what reason? 97 00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:22,310 STEVEN ZUCKER: It actually makes the absurdity of this 98 00:03:22,310 --> 00:03:24,760 object somehow much more profound. 99 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:26,500 BETH HARRIS: Yep.