The meeting of Constructivists and Dadaists in Weimar, 1922

The meeting of Constructivists and Dadaists in Weimar, 1922. Theo van Doesburg (in paper hat) with El Lissitzky (smoking pipe) behind him, and Tristan Tzara (with walking stick), Hans Arp (extreme right), and Hans Ricther (lying on the ground).

In the autumn of 1922 van Doesburg invited Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, Hans Richter and some other proponents of constructivism who were living in Germany to participate in a conference at Wiemar, where he was then living and where the Bauhaus had been established some three years earlier. There to their surprise - since most of them did not then know that van Doesburg under the pseudonym of I.K. Bonset, was also an active Dadaist - the constructivists were met by Hans Arp, Tristam Tzara, Kurt Schwitterr and other members of the dada movement. Though the encounter was distasteful to many of the younger Constructivists, who regarded Dadaism as a negative infuence, the Weimar meeting revealed some of the positive facets of Dadaism and helped to establish a bridge between the major movements.

[photo via kunst_weimar and text from Herbert Spencer, Pioneers of Modern Typography. MIT Press, 1969 via kon st blog]