Looking Outwards-06 Randomness in Art

Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Law of Chance)

During World War 1, in Zurich Germany, artist Jean Hans Arp created a collage that uses a principle of randomness to dictate the artwork. The artwork, Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Law of Chance) interests me because it is a rare and good example of dadaist art. Dadaist art stems from the dada movement; a movement that promoted randomness, nonsense, and satire. The movement itself had been created in reaction to the horrific trauma of the war. Themes of authorship and control were associated with authoritarian and controlling powers, and thus the random and accidental nature of Dadaist art most likely reflects freedom, liberation, and choice. 

In this artwork, Arp demands for a movement of new art; thinking outside the box without intention. She tore up heavyweight fine art papers with torn fiber edges, held them up in air, and then released them, letting the pieces land on the ground wherever gravity and the surrounding atmosphere took it. Then, she would mark the spot that it landed on and accordingly paste the piece in that exact arrangement. 

The use of randomness in Arp’s artwork is an example of Real randomness. While tasks like flipping a coin may be martingale random, or functions like random(); may be pseudo random, dropping papers and letting them land wherever is real random as there is no provable sequence or range involved. However, a factor of the artwork that may take away from the randomness is that it likely had a canvas which the pieces needed to fall on. Thus, she probably only chose pieces which were within the range and bounds of the canvas.