Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art)

346 Pages·1996·19.02 MB·English

by  Hugo Ball, John Elderfield (editor)

Ediatnewddi tahnI ntrodbuyc tion
Flight Out of Ti111e
THE DOCUMENTS OF
20TH-CENTURY ART
Titles in the series available from University of California Press:
Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary by Hugo Ball
John Elderfield
Art as Art: The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt
Barbara Rose
Memoirs of a Dada Drummer by Richard Huelsenbeck
Hans J. Kleinschmidt
German Expressionism: Documents from the
End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism
Rose-Carol Washton Long
Matisse on Art, Revised Edition
Jack Flam
Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings
Jack Flam
JACK FLAM, General Editor
ROBERT MOTHERWELL, Founding Editor
I
and MarcJealn co, from
HugBoa ll Emmy/ le11b1y1 i11gs CabarVeotl ta1i9r1e6,
Flight Out of Ti111e: A Dada Diary
by Hugo Ball
EDITED WITH AN
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY JOHN ELDERFIELD
TRANSLATED BY ANN RAIMES
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY • LOS ANGELES • LONDON
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
Die Flucht aus der Zeit
Copyright© 1974 by The Viking Press, Inc.
Afterword copyright © 1996 by John Elderfield
All rights reserved
First Paperback Printing 1996
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ball, Hugo, I 886-1927.
[Flucht aus de Zeit. English)
Flight out of time : a Dada diary I by Hugo Ball ; edited with an
introduction and notes by John Elderfield ;
translated by Ann Raimes.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Viking Press, 1974. (The
documents of 20th-century art)
ISBN 0-520-20440-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Dadaism-Sources. 2. Arts, Modern-20th century-Sources.
I. Title.
NX456.5.D3B35 I 3 1995 95-39016
700' .9'04-dc20 CIP
Printed in the United States of America
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39-48-1984. <§)
NX456.5
.03
83513
1996
Contents
Editor's Note x1
Introduction by John Elderfield x111
Chronology xlvii
Foreword to the 1946 Edition by Emmy Ball-Hennings xlix
PART ONE
Prologue: The Backdrop 3
Romanticism: The Word and the Image 50
PART TWO
On the Rights of God and Man 1 33
Flight to the Fundamental 183
APPENDIX
Dada Manifesto 219
Kandinsky 222
Endnotes: Ball's Sources 235
Afterword by John Elderfield 238
Bibliography 256
Index 267
Illustrations
Hugo Ball and En1nzy Hennings by Marcel Janco, 1916 frontispiece
Program for the First Dada Evening, July 14, 1916
74
Program for the Second (Sturm) Soiree, April 14, l 9 l 7 107
Program for the Fourth Private Soiree, May 12, 19 l 7 l l 6
Following page 96
The Spiegelgasse in Zurich
Emmy Hennings in Munich, 9 3
l 1
Hugo Ball in Zurich, 9 6
l l
Cabaret Voltaire by Marcel Janco, l 9 l 7
Hugo Ball reciting a poem, 1916
Hugo Ball reciting "Karawane," 1916
Emmy Hennings and Hugo Ball, 19 8
l
Emnzy Hennings and Hugo Ball by Hans Richter
Hugo Ball by Kurt Zander, 1920
Hugo Ball, ca. 920
l
Hugo Ball, 1927
Churchyard in Lugano where Ball is buried
Ball's death mask
Cover of De Stijl, September l 927
Editor's Note
This volume contains the first English translation of Hugo Ball's Die Flucht
aus der Zeit. Ball based this work on his personal diaries for 1910-2 1,
which he began revising in I 924 and published in 192 7. The present text
follows the edition published by Josef Stocker in Lucerne in 1946 and
includes also Emmy Hennings's Foreword to that edition.
Since our aim in presenting Ball's work has been to broaden understanding
of his place within the Dada movement, two additional and important texts
from this period of his life have also been included. Ball's ''Dada Mani
festo," read at the first public dada soiree, July 4, 9 6, in Zurich's Waag
I I I
Hall, is crucial for the light it sheds on both dadaism and Ball's feelings
when he first broke with his dada friends. He returned, however, the fol
lowing year, and his lecture on Kandinsky, delivered at the Galerie Dada
April 7, 9 7, expresses his most developed conception of the social and
I I
spiritual role of the contemporary artist. These items have not appeared in
English before and have not, indeed, been previously available in their
complete form.
Because Ball is little known beyond a specialized circle, and because the
Flucht, although based on Ball's diaries, is often short on personal and
background details, it has been necessary to add considerable supporting
and interpretive material. The notes to the text are the editor's and are
designed to explicate some ambiguous passages and identify some of the
people Ball mentions. Endnotes provide sources for the major books men
tioned.
Xl
This new edition is, effectively, a reprint of the first, 1974 edition with the
following two exceptions. The bibliography has been replaced by one prepared
by Rudolf Kuenzli, to whom I am deeply grateful for his interest in this proj
ect, and I have added a new Afterword which, as I explain there, is based on
an essay I wished could have been included in the first edition. That it appears
now-indeed, that this volume itself is finally back in print-is owing to the
enthusiasm of Jack Flam and Charlene Woodcock, the support of Anne Bor
chardt, and the assistance of Sharon Dec.
J.E., October 1995