Dada and Swatch
For a long time, Dada, the global anti-art movement that began in Zurich, and Swatch, the untamable Swiss watch, knew nothing of one another. It was not until time caught up with Zurich that the birthplace of Dada was brought to the public's attention once again, and that Swatch began to flirt with Dada - the two soul mates had finally found one another.
In the spring of 2002, press reports brought the Dada building, located at 1 Spiegelgasse in Zurich, to the attention of Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group. A group of artists demanded that the premises in which Dada was born on February 5, 1916, and from where it set off to conquer the world, be used for a cultural purpose.
As to the history, war emigrants from various countries - including Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, and Richard Huelsenbeck from Germany, Hans Arp from Alsace, and Tristan Tzara from Romania - rented the backroom at what was the "Meierei" restaurant at 1 Spiegelgasse, and formed the "Cabaret Voltaire". Five months of non-stop culture in the "Cabaret Voltaire" gave the world of art an impetus that would go on to influence all later avant-garde movements. The artists went for anything that contradicted the "hypocritical values of the middle class" and protested against the senselessness of the war.
After the First World War ended, the Dada protagonists went back out into the world. Although the Zurich scene disintegrated, important centers of Dadaism evolved from 1916 onwards in Berlin, New York, Paris, Barcelona, Vienna, and even Mantua. Dada survived as an independent global anti-art movement up to the end of the 1920s and was primarily considered a forerunner of surrealism, fluxus, and pop art.
The return of Dadaism
Through time, the birthplace of Dada was gradually forgotten. Finally, in 2002, the owner of the property made plans to convert 1 Spiegelgasse into an office and residential building. Thanks to the involvement of Swatch, and a petition by the Zurich City Social-Democratic Party and architecture magazine "Hochparterre", along with activities by the support group "Komitee Pro Dada Haus", the owner of the building changed her mind and found a new tenant for the property - the city of Zurich. It was decided that the city of Zurich and Swatch would team up with other sponsors to finance an international public cultural initiative, based on Dadaism, in the Dada building to last for a period of at least five years. As for Swatch, the company will be investing 1.5 million Swiss francs (300,000 francs a year over 5 years) directly in the cultural initiative. This will be supplemented by part of the proceeds from the sale of special Dada watches created by Swatch.
The first Dada Swatch
Without Dada there would be no surrealism, no fluxus, no pop art, no video art, no punk, no performance art, and no slam poetry. Would Swatch have existed had there been no Dada?
In any case, there would be no "Dada Traces" without Dada. In order to celebrate the revival of the Dada building at 1 Spiegelgasse, Swatch is launching its first Dada watch, called "Dada Traces": a Swatch Original Gent watch and an art special, with special packaging based on the movement's history.
The creators of the "Dada Traces" were inspired on the one hand by the Dadaists' "absurd machines" and on the other hand by reports made at the time of the first Dada soirÉes in the Neue ZÜrcher Zeitung (NZZ), one of the largest, oldest, and most prestigious Swiss daily newspapers, based in Zurich. In the first report published in the local news section on February 9th, 1916, the author could not have sensed what was in store: "The evening of February 5th saw the opening of `Voltaire', an artists' cabaret, that (…) is providing Zurich with a new and interesting venue for intellectual entertainment."
In a report dated July 18th, 1916 on a Dada soirÉe in the Zurich restaurant "Waag" the NZZ was already asking:
"What is Dada, this incomparably short word taken from children's babble? It is a symbol for everything. For fun and love, good and evil, for gaiety, profoundness, nonsense, boredom, lunacy, and insanity".
Even the Dadaists themselves would probably not have been able to find a more fitting definition, if they had not been so averse to categorizations of all kinds!
Description of the watch:
"Dada Traces". Crème, plastic strap, with original text passages taken from the reports on Dada published in the NZZ editions dated February 9th and July 18th, 1916 are printed in Gothic type, printing limited to the colors rust, black, and light gray; transparent, plastic buckle and loop with: "cabaretvoltaire, SPIEGELGASSE, ZÜRICH" imprint on the loop; black, plastic case; black dial with an irregularly shaped opening in the middle revealing what a Dadaist would term "an absurd machine", which in this case is actually the watch's internal mechanism; Arabic numbers in crème, graphically represented in typewriter letters, for hours 1 to 12; red hour, minutes, seconds hands.
Special Packaging. Special sleeve with imprints in Gothic type showing original excerpts taken from the reports on Dada published in the NZZ editions dated February 9th and July 18th, 1916. The two dates are printed additionally, highlighted in large print. The label "cabaretvoltaire, SPIEGELGASSE, ZÜRICH" is also in original lettering. The writing is limited to the colors red, black, and gray. Where the paper banderole passes over the face of the watch inside, there is a hole so that the "absurd machine" can even be seen through the packaging.
www.swatch.com
Source: Swatch press release
October 2003
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