Established critics read the Doom Show as neo-dada protest art

Evidence

Acknowledging “The Bomb” as a ready-made subject, Times critic Brian O’Doherty reported a group of young people in “a grubby little gallery” were protesting with a vehemence recalling the belief of primitive doctors “that purgatives and emetics cure everything.” The artists “have mutilated toys, singed dolls, attacked machines and ravaged the girlie magazines for material.” The Doom Show was “neo-dada journalism” and “neo-Fascist social protest.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 226

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures how ‘neo-dada’ was being coined and applied by critics at the moment — a contemporary, not retrospective, label.