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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 833.912
EAN: 9780300083736
ISBN: 0300083734
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 144
Publication Date: 2002-09-01
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press

In this unconventional book, Jonathan Hammer offers a new translation of Hugo Ball's visionary novella Tenderenda the Fantast, along with his own unique Tenderenda-inspired images. The resulting "dialogue" between Ball, the founder of Zurich Dada, and Hammer, a contemporary artist, casts new light on Dadaism and its postmodern legacies.

In Tenderenda, composed between 1914 and 1920, Ball recounts a hallucinatory tale of his own Dada enchantment and disenchantments. Jeffrey T. Schnapp introduces the book, elaborating the cultural and historical context of Ball's work and situating Hammer's work in relation to Dada. In a concluding essay, Hammer probes various aspects of Ball's asceticism, spirituality, and sexuality to arrive at a revisionist interpretation of Zurich Dada and the origins of modernism as well as postmodern art-making.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Brilliantly Odd
Review: Ball and Hammer is a like a six-hand piano piece. Seated at the bench are the long deceased founder of Zurich Dada, Hugo Ball; the contemporary artist, Jonathan Hammer; and the well-regarded critic-scholar, Jeffrey Shnapp. The piece they play is built around Ball's visionary novella-memoir, Tenderenda the Fantast, which is a bit like trying to build a temple around a hallucination.

Hammer and Schnapp brilliantly riff in and around Ball's memoir: the former with his zany illustrations, a provocative essay and his translation of Ball; the latter with a razor sharp-edged introduction and an array of learned notes. The mix works. It's hard to tell where one takes over and the other leaves off.

This is no conventional university press book from the standpoint of production values. It's graphically dazzling, has twenty-plus splendid color illustrations, and is at least as much fun as a ride on one of those Twister roller coasters.

I recommend it highly for yourself or for that distinctive gift to an eccentric friend or loved one who loves Dada.

It makes nice in your brain and looks just as nice on your coffee table.

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