ARTIFICIAL HELLS

artificial hells
Instead of drawing attention to picturesque sites, or places of historical
interest or sentimental value, the aim was to make a nonsense of the social
form of the guided tour. The flier also listed a number of proposed future
visits – which in fact would never be carried out – to destinations including
the Louvre, the park at Buttes Chaumont and the Gare Saint- Lazare. The
fliers were festooned with slogans laid out in typical Dada typography: ‘You
should cut your nose like your hair’, ‘Wash your breasts like your gloves’,
‘Property is the luxury of the poor, be dirty’, ‘Thanks for the rifle’. 98
The audience figures for this event are disputed: Richter reports that ‘it
rained and no- one came. The idea of further similar enterprises was abandoned.’
99 Breton, meanwhile, states that they attracted ‘one or two hundred
onlookers’. 100 Photographs testify to a figure somewhere in between, a
modest-sized group in smart dress, standing around in evidently dismal
weather conditions. The group had acquired a popular following, in part
thanks to Tzara’s canny manipulation of the press (for example, for the
Dada event on 5 February 1920, Tzara advertised the presence of Charlie
Chaplin lecturing on the Dada movement in order to draw crowds and
press coverage). 101 Breton read a manifesto out loud, while Georges Ribemont-
Dessaignes played the part of guide, holding a large Larousse
dictionary in his hands; in front of particular sculptures or monuments, he
read definitions from the book, chosen at random; ‘the most sparkling
ones’, he recalled, ‘were those without a value judgement’. 102 A downpour
of rain drew the tour to an early close after about an hour and a half, and
prevented an ‘auction of abstractions’ from taking place. 103 The audience
Excursion to Saint Julien-le-Pauvre, 14 April 1921
69