by Rainer Ganahl
July – August 2008
Rainer Ganahl is a Swiss artist based in New York. His work encompasses grand narratives and Google searches, EBAY and embroidery, explores how the incidental and banal are inextricable from the political. He has recently shown at the Istanbul, Venice and Moscow Biennials. G126 is delighted to make possible his first appearance in Ireland.
DADALENIN is an ongoing project that asserts that V. I. Lenin was a founding member of the Dadaist movement; That Lenin was a regular at the Cabaret Voltaire when in Zurich in 1916; That he operated in disguise and most other Dadaists weren’t aware of it; That Lenin even wrote poems for Tristan Tzara, had a secret relationship with him and participated in a diverse range of early Dadaist advances. In the latest Irish installment of this project Ganahl has included James Joyce as a collaborator. Joyce was also present in Zurich at the same time as Lenin and the Dadaists. Ganahl uses DADALENIN to ‘prove’ these assertions by connecting historical events, artifacts, images, readings, internet searches, even other artworks and historical figures. Making serious points through a comedic methodology, DADALENIN addresses the lost causes of the 20th century’s problematic history.
