UNDERGRADUATE

FIGURE 1
Issue 1 of Simbolul, with cover artwork by Marcel Iancu (Janco),
October 25, 1912. Image originally published in Tom Sandqvist,
Dada East. The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire, MIT Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, 2006. ISBN 0-262-19507-0.
FIGURE 2
Cabaret Voltaire, edited by Hugo Ball. Original brochure with cover
illustration by Hans Arp: Kunsthaus Zürich, Library, DADA III:37. 32
pages, 13 illustrations, 27 × 22 cm.
of Dada.’ As World War I ravaged Europe, the tavern on
Spiegelstrasse in neutral Zürich was transformed into the
Cabaret Voltaire by the German poet Hugo Ball (1886-
1927) and his partner, Emmy Hennings (1885-1948). Both
Ball and Hennings placed great value on artistic freedom,
experimentation, and collaboration, and as a product of
their irreverent counter-cultural sensibilities, the cabaret
attracted a diverse entourage of young artists and writers
who sought respite from the war. Resistance to nationalism
and hegemony was evident in the emphasis Dada placed on
diversity and subversion, two concepts that drove Tzara’s
approach to production. While evenings at the cabaret
had gained a level of notoriety for their insurrection, it was
primarily through journals that the news of the movement
was disseminated across Europe. 5
On May 10, 1916, three months after the opening of the
Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, Tzara wrote to René Gaffé, a
well-connected Belgian collector, in hopes of advancing
Dada further into international consciousness. Together,
Ball and Tzara were organizing a review unlike other arts
and literature publications, one that would take its name
from the Cabaret Voltaire. This letter to Gaffé, coupled
with a June 4, 1916 entry in Hugo Ball’s diary, has received
5 Hoffman, 132.
attention by scholars who, guided by this primary source
material, were able to reconstruct a preliminary draft of
the review Cabaret Voltaire (Fig. 2) before its publication
on June 14, 1916. 6 The motive for Tzara’s letter to Gaffé,
however, was not so much concerned with the edit as it
was a request for Gaffé to inform his friends about the
Cabaret Voltaire. 7 This sort of transaction marks an early
stage of what would quickly evolve into an exchangebased
system of information distribution. Publications
gained currency as they were shared between avantgarde
groups across Europe as a primary means of
communication and in an effort to increase visibility of
contemporary practice.
Ball described the publication broadly as the “first
synthesis of the modern schools of art and literature,” a
communal vehicle for expression. Contributions came
from Dadaists as well as Futurists and Cubists, while
literary works were published in French and German.
In the single-issue review, Ball wrote, “It is necessary
6 A detailed account of the publication’s evolution is outlined in Hellmut
Whol ,“Tristan Tzara, René Gaffé and the Cabaret Voltaire,” The
Burlington Magazine, 149, no. 1249, Collecting in Spain (April 2007):263.
7 Ibid.
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY
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