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This lesson is on the Dada Art Movement




7, 8  


Title – Room 14 goes Dada!
By – Indira Neville
Subject – Art
Grade Level – Grades 7-8
Unit Aim:
For children to develop an understanding of the art movement ‘Dada’ by creating their own piece of dad artwork using the computer.

Unit Objectives:
1. Students will have art history knowledge of the art movement Dada.
2. Students will use a scanner to produce their own artwork.
3. Students will use an appropriate scanning program and painting or drawing programs on the computer to produce their own artwork.

Copies of Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ and Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Mona Lisa’ to show the class.
Examples of Dada art works.
A selection of art books with good illustrations.
Computers and relevant software.
Color printer.

Unit Moves:
1. Show Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ to the class. Discuss the work, who knows it? Where have they seen it? Is this painting famous? Why?

2. Show Marcel Duchamp’s version of the Mona Lisa with a moustache and beard. Discuss this image, how is it different from the first ‘Mona Lisa’? What do you think the artist Duchamp was trying to show by putting facial hair on this famous painting?

3. Explain that Duchamp was a member of an art movement called Dada. Discuss the spirit of Dada, as ant-art, destructive, humorous, challenging to traditional ideas of ‘high art’, and show examples.

4. Tell children they are going to make their own piece of Dada and model the process:
Choose a painting by a famous artist from one of the art books you have gathered. Scan the image into the computer. Insert the image into a drawing or painting program and use the toolbox to ‘dadify’ it. (In my class kids did all kinds of things, for example one of Georgia O’Keefe’s Sheep skulls had a line of washing strung between it’s horns, Monet’s Waterlilies had a shark fin rising up from them ominously, and A Raphael Madonna clutched a can of beer).

5. Individually or in pairs children are to scan images and graffiti them. Make sure they do not overdo it. For the act to be funny and subversive and Dada the original artwork needs to be visible.

6. Print, present and enjoy!

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