Vingt-cinq poèmes 1918

Curator: So, here we have Jean Arp’s book cover for Tristan Tzara’s "Vingt-cinq poèmes," or "Twenty-Five Poems," published in 1918 as part of the Collection Dada Zurich. It includes ten woodcut illustrations. Editor: Right away, I get a very specific feeling from this. There’s a raw, almost primal energy here, a real punch in such a compact space. I keep wanting to touch it. Does anyone else feel this compulsion? Curator: Absolutely, and that’s very Dada, isn’t it? Breaking down the barriers between art and life, inviting tactile, intuitive responses. It challenges the traditional idea of the book cover as merely a decorative or descriptive element. Editor: I think what really hits me is the simplicity, this almost childlike rendering. Like shapes you’d see in a Rorschach test, dark silhouettes intertwined on this amber field. Makes you ask, what *are* those? And does it even matter? Curator: That ambiguity is key. Remember the context: 1918, the end of the First World War. Dada emerged as a direct response to the perceived absurdity and moral bankruptcy that led to the conflict. Abstraction became a weapon. Editor: Exactly! It feels rebellious in its seeming meaninglessness, a total rejection of old narratives. Even the typography has a sort of anti-establishment feel, like, we don’t even need fancy fonts to get our point across. Raw truth, unfiltered emotion. Curator: And the Collection Dada Zurich part is so significant. It positions the work firmly within a network of radical artists and poets. The movement itself as an intervention against established norms, rejecting the art world's complicity in the war effort. Editor: Makes you wonder about Tristan Tzara's poems inside. I bet they mirrored the anarchic spirit, the experimental wordplay you find here. I imagine a book where form and content were deliberately colliding, disrupting assumptions. Curator: Absolutely, a book becomes more than just a book. It is transformed into a performative space, a meeting place between the reader, the artist, and the socio-political moment of its making. It’s pretty exciting to consider, actually. Editor: So true! A tangible little bomb of creative and cultural defiance from the past. What a testament to art’s ability to push boundaries!