Dada introduced some of the most revolutionary and exhilarating ideas into the history of twentieth-century art and literature. Its repercussions can still be felt in many of the subversive strategies employed by contemporary artists.

My research in this field has focused on the art criticism of the movement’s founder, Tristan Tzara.

‘Attention Seeking: Tristan Tzara’s Art Criticism as Prose Poetry’, Nottingham French Studies, Vol. 62, no. 2, 2023 (Edinburgh University Press).

‘Collage as Form and Idea in the Art Criticism of Tristan Tzara’ in French Studies, Vol. 73, Issue 4 (2019)

Tristan Tzara photographed by André Kertész in 1926

Attention! Paris Dada, Nottingham French Studies, edited by Kathryn Brown and Erica O’Neill (Summer 2023)

Read the Introduction here.

Keynote: ‘Collage as Form and Idea: Tristan Tzara, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Rousseau’: Visual Dada International Conference, Bucharest (June, 2016).

Events

Rethinking the Histories and Legacies of New York Dada. A two-day international symposium organized by Kathryn Brown. July 2021, Loughborough University.

Generously funded by The Terra Foundation for American Art

This international symposium examined the creative and intellectual distinctiveness of New York Dada and probes the new idioms and ideas to which it gave rise. It seeks to extend the scope of inquiry beyond the familiar range of works and artists and to propose new methodologies for studying this field. Key questions include, but are not limited to, the following: How did Dada adapt to and alter the social and artistic environment of New York? How did Dada engage with African American art and culture? What made New York Dada different from its European counterparts? How did a market for Dada art develop in the United States? How did Dada challenge gender norms and open new pathways for individuals to express themselves both creatively and commercially? What was the legacy of New York Dada in the United States and beyond?

Attention! Paris Dada. Co-organized by Erica O’Neill (Glasgow University) and Kathryn Brown (Loughborough University).

Loughborough University, July 2021.

This one-day, interdisciplinary symposium celebrated the centenary of the Paris branch of the avant-garde movement, Dada. Modernist scholars from disciplines across the arts and humanities – including Modern Languages, Music, History of Art, and Theatre Studies – examined how, 100 years after its launch in Paris, Dada retains its relevance to contemporary artistic, pedagogical, and social practices.

In addition to the academic programme, the symposium presented music and theatre: two contemporary practitioners responded to iconic Paris Dada performances, and Professor Peter Dayan (University of Edinburgh) recreated a performance from ‘Le premier vendredi de Littérature’ (23 January, 1920).

Conference: Tristan Tzara: un siècle de Dada’. Romanian Embassy, Paris. 27 May 2016.

‘Tristan Tzara et la mythologie moderne d’Henri Rousseau’, Romanian Embassy (Paris, 27 May, 2016).