100 Years ago today…“On 14 April 1921 in Paris, at three in the afternoon, in the r

100 Years ago today…

“On 14 April 1921 in Paris, at three in the afternoon, in the rain, eleven Dadaists conducted a ‘lay pilgrimage’ to the church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, the first in a proposed series of urban excursions to the 'banal places’ of the city…
We don’t know which of the Dada artists had suggested that site — “an abandoned church, known to few people, surrounded at the time by a sort of terrain vague enclosed by fences" — nor the reasons behind the choice. But its position, in the heart of the Latin Quarter, seems to indicate that this particular garden around a church was selected precisely as if it were an abandoned garden near one’s own home: a space to investigate, familiar hut unknown, seldom visited hut evident, a banal, useless space which like so many others wouldn’t really have any reason to exist. The exploration of the city and the continuing discovery of situations to investigate is possible anywhere, even in the heart of Parisian tourism zones, even along the Seine on the rive gauche facing the cathedral of Notre Dame.”

Francesco Careri, Walkscapes: Walking As An Aesthetic Practice, 2017.

Image:Tristan Tzara, Excursions & visites DADA, 1ère visite: Église Saint Julien le Pauvre, 1921.