Jean (Hans) Arp, Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance), 1916-17

STEVEN ZUCKER: We're at the
Museum of Modern Art looking

at a really famous collage.

It's Jean Arp, sometimes
known as Hans Arp.

It's an untitled
object, but it's always

known as Collage
with Squares Arranged

According to the Laws of Chance.

And that's exactly what it is.

It's a gray piece of
paper, construction paper,

almost children's
construction paper.

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

squares that have been
ripped into these shapes

and then scattered
on the surface.

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

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

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

BETH HARRIS: --of the First,

STEVEN ZUCKER: --or
the end, right.

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

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

d'Avignon, which is 1907.

And really how radical--

STEVEN ZUCKER: --Ten years.

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

We have a completely
abstract work.

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

STEVEN ZUCKER: It really
begins to play fast and loose

with the very definition
of what a work of art is.

BETH HARRIS: Yes, absolutely.

STEVEN ZUCKER: It sort
of rips at the heart

of what our definition
is historically.

BETH HARRIS: It's
not self-expression.

It's not skill.

It's not an expression
of the unconscious,

even, like surrealism
would claim later.

STEVEN ZUCKER: So it's
actually in some ways

still really
challenging in that--

BETH HARRIS: It is.

STEVEN ZUCKER: --in
that we look at painting

for the decisions of the artist.

And here that's been given up.

BETH HARRIS: Completely.

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

It's a--

BETH HARRIS: It is
a real anti-art.

STEVEN ZUCKER:
--real destruction

of the very
foundation with which

we understand how to deal with

BETH HARRIS: It is.

STEVEN ZUCKER: --an
object in space.

BETH HARRIS: And,
it still is, right.

STEVEN ZUCKER: And it's
an extraordinary thing.

So how can we
understand this though,

in the context of the war?

You mentioned that
this was 1916, 1917.

BETH HARRIS: Yes.

STEVEN ZUCKER:
The war is raging.

It's unprecedented.

But this is being
made in Zurich.

You know, Arp was one of the
founders of the Zurich Dada

movement, and Zurich, of
course, is a neutral--

BETH HARRIS: Country.

STEVEN ZUCKER: It's--

BETH HARRIS: Switzerland.

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

So I guess I'm just
wondering, where

is the relationship between
this kind of aggression

against the traditions of
art and the violence that's

taking place across Europe.

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

given to that is that
this sort of emphasis

on rational and on human reason
was part of bourgeois culture

that had created

STEVEN ZUCKER: The violence.

BETH HARRIS: The violence
and the irrationalness

of World War I. But
what strikes me also

is just the irrationality
people-- because this

is something created according
to the laws of chance.

And people are being
called to the war.

They're being drafted.

They're sent to the front lines.

They live, they
die, they suffer.

STEVEN ZUCKER: It
was all chance.

BETH HARRIS: They get
legs and limbs amputated,

all basically on a
roll of the dice.

STEVEN ZUCKER: Yeah.

And Arp would have seen that.

The number of veterans
that came back--

BETH HARRIS: Everyone saw it.

STEVEN ZUCKER: --who
were deformed, who had--

BETH HARRIS: Post-traumatic
stress syndrome.

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

and been disfigured,
was extraordinary.

And then those that
came back unscathed.

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

Where is the rationality
for what happens to who

for what reason?

STEVEN ZUCKER: It actually
makes the absurdity of this

object somehow
much more profound.

BETH HARRIS: Yep.