likethebeer

Slate magazine has an article by Lee Siegel, "Rebels without a Cause," regarding Dada, as a result of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (how weird is that?--not very I suppose after all this time, but it's still strange to contemplate that Dada is at the National Gallery). Now, I should mention that the first art history class I ever took was on Dada & Surrealism. I took it b/c the photography class that I was going to sign up for was already full, so a friend suggested I take this. I had no clue what Dada was, although by the time I went to grad school, I wanted to concentrate on it. Doesn't mean I know a whole lot more about it now than I did in college, b/c the modern art prof at the UW knew about as much about Dada as me. But I know more, apparently, then the man who wrote the article for Slate.

Right away Lee Siegel got a fact wrong (the start date for Dada), and I picked up a few other incorrect facts in the piece. So I wrote to Slate.

"Rebels Without a Cause," by Lee Siegel.

Siegel gets things seriously wrong with this essay, things that he would not have gotten wrong had he purchased the catalogue to the show instead of relying on his notes.

First, he stated that Dada began after WWI. It started in 1916, in Zurich. I.e., during WWI.

He spelled the name of Marcel Duchamp's alter-ego Rrose Selavy wrong, with one "r" at the beginning of the name, instead of 2.

Kurt Schwitters only had 2 Merzbau, as far as I've ever heard, instead of what Siegel implies, that he had multiple Merzbau and just kept moving from one to the other as they were "all destroyed" during WWII. There was only one Merzbau that was destroyed. That was known as _The Cathedral of Erotic Misery_, _not_ the title that Siegel uses, _Cathedrals of Erotic Misery_.

The mistakes that this man made in the essay are inexcusable, sloppy and infuriating. I _hate it_ when people who don't know their stuff don't do their homework.

I'm sorry to be critical, but I'm pissed! I knew that stuff off the top of my head and the guy getting paid to do this doesn't check his facts? It's just not right!