Hannah Hoch
Hannah Höch was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period when she was one of the originators of photomontage. She studied at the National Institute of the Museum of Arts and Crafts under the famed artist, Emil Orlik. She became friends with Raoul Hausmann in 1915, who introduced her to the Berlin Dada movement. In 1915, Höch began a serious relationship with Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Berlin Dada movement. They were together for 7 years before breaking up with him, she then got into a relationship with a woman, Dutch roer and linguist Mathilda Brugman and autumn of 1926, Höch moved in with Mathilda, where they lived until 1929, at which time they moved to Berlin. Höch and Brugman’s relationship lasted nine years, until 1935. Their relationship was never tagged lesbian, instead, a private love relationship. This was a very powerful movement in the history of art.
Here are some examples of her work, with many of photomontages:
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Höch was a key forebear of the self-conscious practice of collaging diverse photographic components from various sources to make art. This approach of mixing previously unrelated images to make sometimes startling, sometimes insightful connections was one that came to be adopted by many Dada and Surrealist artists of her era, and also by later generations of "post-modern" conceptual artists in other media, including sculptural furnishings, mixed media and moving images, as well as in still photography.
Höch also helped develop the notion of what could be regarded art by incorporating found elements of popular culture into "higher" art. She was one of many Dadaists to take advantage of such means, but she was both among the first, and one of the most self-consciously explicit in explaining the goals and effects of doing so.
Höch also helped develop the notion of what could be regarded art by incorporating found elements of popular culture into "higher" art. She was one of many Dadaists to take advantage of such means, but she was both among the first, and one of the most self-consciously explicit in explaining the goals and effects of doing so.
Hannah Hoch was a leading female artist of the Dada movement in Germany after WWI. Her photomontage “Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany” reflected her views of the political and social issues that emerged during this transitional time in German society. The long drawn out war that had focused the country's attention for so long was lost and Germany was left in a state of political disorder. She chooses to give terms, such as kitchen knife and beer-belly, to make it apparent that this piece is social commentary regarding gender issues in post-war Germany.
It was not very easy for a woman to impose herself as a modern artist in Germany… Most of our male colleagues continued for a long time to look upon us as charming and gifted amateurs, denying us implicitly any real professional status. |