Dada was an art movement formed in 1916 in Zurich in negative reaction to the horrors and folly of the war. The art, poetry and performance produced by dada artists is often satirical and nonsensical in nature.

Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old. 

Dada spread to Berlin by 1917, and reached its high point in 1920 at the Dada Art Fair.