dada at the national gallery

We keep saying that we've got to cut down on the travelling. We were out of town for half of March, and it's starting to wear on all of us. We're running out of money and we have a baby due in June, so third-trimester travel is especially trying. But we're going to Philly in three weeks, and now I want to go to Washington DC to see the Dada exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. Even though Dada is starting to show its age (90, now!), it apparently still retains its intended ability to shock, disgust, perplex, and anger. I showed my students images of famous Dada works--Duchamp's Fountain and the like--and they were annoyed at it. ("That's not art!") It's not just undergrads, either; the National Review is also irritated that Dada just isn't real art, and that the National Gallery would waste resources on it.