When the first Nada Dada art festival—then called Dada Motel—was held in
2007, the point, at least in part, was to push back against the status
quo of the city’s established art festival, Artown.
The idea was to hold an inclusive, anything-goes art show with no
curatorial oversight or jurying. To bring their vision to life, the
founding artists rented rooms in the El Cortez hotel and put exhibitions
in each.
The event, as the iterations of its name suggest, was inspired by the
anarchic ideals of dadaism and similar movements—so calling it a success
might actually be an affront to its participants who would object that
they never set out to accomplish anything, per se. Nonetheless, local
artists have come together every June since to recreate it—basing their
no-rules shows in Reno weeklies, from the Lido to the recently
demolished Wildflower Village.
The tagline for Nada Dada has long been “Get a room; make a show.” This
year, though, there’s an elephant in the room. That’s because when Nada
Dada kicks off, a month later than in years past, it’ll be an official
Artown event. But what does that mean? How did Nada Dada go from
reacting against Artown to participating in it?
“Well, number one is that Artown didn’t ask us to participate in July,”
said repeat Nada Dada artist Rex Norman, better known as Killbuck. “We
made the decision to do that, and partly because the traditional date we
were using—the third week in June—has been filled up with so many
different events, you know, rodeo, the Blues and Brews festival. … And
so we were sort of event-crowded-out.”
But that wasn’t the only reason for rescheduling. According to Killbuck
and fellow Nada Dada artist Jenn Thornton, finding motel rooms in
advance of the event has become increasingly difficult over the
years—first as a result of the recession and more recently because of a lack of affordable housing in the wake of job growth. This year, it
looked like securing rooms might be impossible.
“We just kind of got pushed out of the downtown area,” said Thornton.
As for the Artown connection? “It was mentioned in passing, I forget who
brought it up to somebody who’s connected to Artown, and they got very
excited,” Killbuck said. “They said, ‘Well, you know, contact us, and
we’ll put you in the calendar.’ And so we weren’t actually looking to
become part of Artown, but Artown kind of wanted us to participate. And
so we said, ‘Sure.’”
Killbuck and Thornton said, overall, the change isn’t that big of a
deal. The distaste for Artown, they said, was never universal. And by
moving the event to July, they were able to house almost all of the
participating artists inside the Morris Burner Hostel, with a few others at the Potentialist Workshop.Still, there is no selection committee, no censorship.
“Everybody is their own curator,” Killbuck said. “Artown has left us
entirely alone. They’ve known about us for a long time, and so they know
our primary organizational characteristic is that we have very little to no organization. … As Artown has grown, too, there has been a lot more local artist participation. They still focus on imported headline talent, but you know that’s not really a bad thing—as long as local artists can be at the table as well.”