Jean (Hans) Arp
By Katerina Kechris
Jean Arp, a French painter and sculptor, became part of the Dadaist movement in the early part of the 20th century. Throughout his lifetime he worked in many mediums: painting, sculpture, tapestry, collage and poetry. Arp was born September 16, 1887 in Strasbourg, France. He studied art in Weimar and Paris and worked throughout Europe, primarily in Munich, Zurich and Paris.
He was a founder of the Dadaist school of artists in Zurich in 1916. Groups of Dadaists were also located internationally, in New York, Paris and Cologne. Other artists involved were Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters. The Dada movement, a precursor to surrealism, was the result of the founders' disenchantment with the state of society. They were particularly enraged at the persisting war and chose to ridicule art, a reflection of their civilization. The Dadaists used techniques that went against all established art theory. The more irrational the concepts the better. They also worked with the notion of chance. Arp's work "Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance" (1917) illustrates this. Pieces of paper were dropped on a piece of cardboard and pasted down where they fell. Their works were instinctively abstract rather than the result of experimentation as with other artists of the time. Although collages were most frequent, Dada art also extended into poetry and photomontages.
Once the movement ended in 1923, Arp worked with the surrealists. He worked on wooden bas-reliefs and sculpture. His works include the biomorphic sculptures, "Coquille Baillante" and "Human Concretion". Arp also wrote throughout his career, referring to himself as Jean when he wrote in French and Hans when he wrote in German.
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