The name for the artistic movement Dada was founded in Zurich in 1915 as a revolt against complacent art.
It is drawn not from an artist or a technique but from the child’s word for a parent, dada, which in French, curiously, also means “hobbyhorse.”
Whatever its origin, the name Dada is intended to be devoid of meaning.
As one of the movement’s founders, poet Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), claimed, “Like everything in life, Dada is useless.”