Bulletin D
Ernst, Max, J[ohannes]. T[heodor]. Baargeld (Alfred Grünwald) et al
Cologne. (Für den Inhalt verantwortlich Max Ernst. Köln). 1919
The first flowering of dada in Cologne: Max Ernst and Johannes Baargeld's very rare manifesto / review / catalogue 'Bulletin D'.
'Bulletin D', with contributions from Angelika and Heinrich Hoerle, Franz Seiwert, Anton Räderscheidt (and others) was produced by Johannes Theodor Baargeld (the pseudonym of Alfred Grünwald) and Max Ernst and issued to coincide with the Cologne dada exhibition held at the Cologne Society of Artists in November 1919. Given the usual reaction of the establishment to dada it now seems odd, but Karl Nierendorf had given permission for the first exhibition of Cologne dada at the Kunstverein largely due to Ernst's participation - he showed paintings - at a previous exhibition in May. However, when faced with the actual dada work, Nierendorf withdrew that permission and the work was shown separately. Contributing artists included Hans Arp, Paul Klee (Ernst had been inducted into Zürich dada at Klee's atelier where he met Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings), Ernst himself, Baargeld, Heinrich and Angelika Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. Seiwert and Hoerle withdrew their work before the exhibition opened because they had come to see that 'dada was a bourgeois art business'!
As per Ades, 'they now installed works by Sunday painters and children, and a variety of miscellaneous objects including an umbrella and a piano hammer, wire constructions representing mathematical formulae ... and African sculptures'. Again, as per Ades, 'Baargeld and Ernst in the true spirit of making the most of such opportunities, turned it into a dada event'. This manifesto / review / catalogue was issued but was confiscated by the British authorities who had oversight of the Rhineland. Although no further issues of 'Bulletin D' appeared and no further exhibitions were held, Baargeld and Ernst did form the group 'Central W/3' ('Zentrale Westupiden 3') with Hans Arp, that led to the review 'Die Schammade' and via a further exhibition, ultimately, at least for Arp and Ernst, to Paris dada and Surrealism.
'Bulletin D ... schlagt das warme Ei aus der Hand! ... '. (From the text).
''Bulletin D' was published to coincide with the first dada exhibition in Cologne ... The cover of 'Bulletin D' was designed by Ernst, with collage (a piece of machinery cut from an old print) and drawing; the magazine-catalogue also contained several of the works in the exhibition reproduced in small format in the centre of single pages, and texts by Baargeld, Ernst, Otto Freundlich and Heinrich Hoerle, of the purest dada bombast ... Ernst recalls that Katherine Dreier visited the exhibition, told them of her friend Marcel Duchamp and invited them to send their exhibition to her gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. This was promptly vetoed by the British military authorities, who also confiscated 'Bulletin D' ...'. (Dawn Ades).
'Cologne Dada (1919 - 1922) emerged as a complex double pivot between wartime and postwar Dada with a later turn from Dada to Surrealism. Dada was both stimulated and suppressed by the dire conditions in Cologne under British occupation after the war. Through several publications and two major exhibitions, Cologne Dada evolved an independent and distinctive character best described as parodic and contradictory. The central figure was Max Ernst, an intellectual whose fantastical ideas were inspired by the absurdity of the postwar era. Ernst’s main collaborator was Alfred Grünwald, whose pseudonym, Johannes Baargeld (Moneybags), reflected the affluence of his father, an insurance director ... The double view of poetic politics surfaced as Bulletin D raged against Berlin Dadaists, and Ernst and Baargeld turned postwar conditions into whimsical fantasies of a mechanized humanity.' (From 'Cologne Dada' by Tina Yarborough).
'Bulletin D' is, due to the apparent seizure of issues by British authorities, necessarily scarce and we locate only three copies at auction since 1960. 'Bulletin D' is also very scarce in institutions and we locate only the following copies: in the US, four copies (at Yale (incomplete), MoMA, Northwestern and the Getty); in Germany, five copies (at the Badisches Landesbibliothek, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, the Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, the Wissenschaftliche Stadtbibliothek Mainz and the Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg in Frankfurt); in France, a copy is held at the Bibliothèque Kandinsky in Paris; we locate no further examples.
The wrappers, a folded leaf of thin printed card, have, in the present copy, split at the spine and the staples have oxidised; the front cover is slightly stained and one staple is absent. Despite this, the copy remains in good condition.
Full details of the contents are available on request.
[Bolliger III, 137 (Tzara's copy); see Ades pg. 110 and pp. 103 - 104; Le Fonds Paul Destribats 111; see 'Cologne Dada' by Tina Yarborough in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism].
'Bulletin D', with contributions from Angelika and Heinrich Hoerle, Franz Seiwert, Anton Räderscheidt (and others) was produced by Johannes Theodor Baargeld (the pseudonym of Alfred Grünwald) and Max Ernst and issued to coincide with the Cologne dada exhibition held at the Cologne Society of Artists in November 1919. Given the usual reaction of the establishment to dada it now seems odd, but Karl Nierendorf had given permission for the first exhibition of Cologne dada at the Kunstverein largely due to Ernst's participation - he showed paintings - at a previous exhibition in May. However, when faced with the actual dada work, Nierendorf withdrew that permission and the work was shown separately. Contributing artists included Hans Arp, Paul Klee (Ernst had been inducted into Zürich dada at Klee's atelier where he met Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings), Ernst himself, Baargeld, Heinrich and Angelika Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. Seiwert and Hoerle withdrew their work before the exhibition opened because they had come to see that 'dada was a bourgeois art business'!
As per Ades, 'they now installed works by Sunday painters and children, and a variety of miscellaneous objects including an umbrella and a piano hammer, wire constructions representing mathematical formulae ... and African sculptures'. Again, as per Ades, 'Baargeld and Ernst in the true spirit of making the most of such opportunities, turned it into a dada event'. This manifesto / review / catalogue was issued but was confiscated by the British authorities who had oversight of the Rhineland. Although no further issues of 'Bulletin D' appeared and no further exhibitions were held, Baargeld and Ernst did form the group 'Central W/3' ('Zentrale Westupiden 3') with Hans Arp, that led to the review 'Die Schammade' and via a further exhibition, ultimately, at least for Arp and Ernst, to Paris dada and Surrealism.
'Bulletin D ... schlagt das warme Ei aus der Hand! ... '. (From the text).
''Bulletin D' was published to coincide with the first dada exhibition in Cologne ... The cover of 'Bulletin D' was designed by Ernst, with collage (a piece of machinery cut from an old print) and drawing; the magazine-catalogue also contained several of the works in the exhibition reproduced in small format in the centre of single pages, and texts by Baargeld, Ernst, Otto Freundlich and Heinrich Hoerle, of the purest dada bombast ... Ernst recalls that Katherine Dreier visited the exhibition, told them of her friend Marcel Duchamp and invited them to send their exhibition to her gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. This was promptly vetoed by the British military authorities, who also confiscated 'Bulletin D' ...'. (Dawn Ades).
'Cologne Dada (1919 - 1922) emerged as a complex double pivot between wartime and postwar Dada with a later turn from Dada to Surrealism. Dada was both stimulated and suppressed by the dire conditions in Cologne under British occupation after the war. Through several publications and two major exhibitions, Cologne Dada evolved an independent and distinctive character best described as parodic and contradictory. The central figure was Max Ernst, an intellectual whose fantastical ideas were inspired by the absurdity of the postwar era. Ernst’s main collaborator was Alfred Grünwald, whose pseudonym, Johannes Baargeld (Moneybags), reflected the affluence of his father, an insurance director ... The double view of poetic politics surfaced as Bulletin D raged against Berlin Dadaists, and Ernst and Baargeld turned postwar conditions into whimsical fantasies of a mechanized humanity.' (From 'Cologne Dada' by Tina Yarborough).
'Bulletin D' is, due to the apparent seizure of issues by British authorities, necessarily scarce and we locate only three copies at auction since 1960. 'Bulletin D' is also very scarce in institutions and we locate only the following copies: in the US, four copies (at Yale (incomplete), MoMA, Northwestern and the Getty); in Germany, five copies (at the Badisches Landesbibliothek, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, the Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, the Wissenschaftliche Stadtbibliothek Mainz and the Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg in Frankfurt); in France, a copy is held at the Bibliothèque Kandinsky in Paris; we locate no further examples.
The wrappers, a folded leaf of thin printed card, have, in the present copy, split at the spine and the staples have oxidised; the front cover is slightly stained and one staple is absent. Despite this, the copy remains in good condition.
Full details of the contents are available on request.
[Bolliger III, 137 (Tzara's copy); see Ades pg. 110 and pp. 103 - 104; Le Fonds Paul Destribats 111; see 'Cologne Dada' by Tina Yarborough in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism].
[6 leaves of white glossy paper]. Small folio. (312 x 238 mm). Leaf with drop-head title and text, two leaves with printed text in German within borders, four leaves with monochrome illustration and credit (see below). Original publisher's thin tan card printed wrappers, stapled as issued, printed title and illustrations in black to front cover, editorial credit to rear, inner front wrapper with quotation, inner rear wrapper with monochrome illustration.
#48585
