collage

The dadaists further developed the collage technique recently discovered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques in Paris. Like the cubists, the dadaists pasted papers, fabric and other two-dimensional materials to their works, breaking down the barrier between art and everyday life. But the dadaists abandoned the pretense of still life or other identifiable subject matter in favor of abstract collages, and they cast their net far wider for their source material: the collages of Hannover dadaist Kurt Schwitters, for example, included such items as transportation tickets, calendars, candy wrappers, lace, printed pamphlets, maps, and other disposable ephemera collected in the course of the artist's daily outings. Collaged together, they formed a chaotic visual diary of modern life.