Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of the Dada mouvement, founded by artists and intellectuals Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Marcel Janco during World War I anarchic could have been forced to close its doors. Its fate of lied in the hands of the voters of Zurich who had to decide whether to end its subsidy of CHF315,000 a year. The right-wing Swiss People‘s Party forced the vote. The party's reason for its closing was "no more public money to places that use art as propaganda"or "“Zurich’s not gaga. No taxes for Dada”. Well, I am glad that Zurich had made the right choice: Cabaret Voltaire will stay, for good. Sometimes politics in this country (as well as in many other) makes me think about the debate about public funding of the arts. Is it possible that the governments often spends money on redundand things but then, but when something historical, that is part of our artstic past (and future) might disappear the money is not available anymore? Fortunately in this case, common people understood the importance af such a place and decided with their own mind (and heart). Sometimes it is about art, not about politics.
'It’s not Dada that is nonsense--but the essence of our age that is nonsense.'-- The Dadaists
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