Dada Pamphlet, 1924.
These socks not white. The title of the exhibition is derived from a Dada document addressed to the “HH Journalists and Editors”. This pamphlet, prepared in response to the fierce criticism Van Doesburg and his associates received after the ‘Dada Campaign’, says – jokingly – that the socks that Theo van Doesburg wore during the Dada soirees were not white, but ‘gris- perle’. Not everything is what it looks like or should be, the pamphlet seems to say. The image created by the media does not (always) convey reality. The way information is generated, what is deemed important and why, as what is chosen to create an image of past and present? How is information conveyed and in what ways can we look at it? And if we think we know what we believe we know, do we see it as well, even if it is not directly said or shown that way? Van Abbemuseum
Design is fine. History is mine. 