In “Untitled”, Höch spliced blue eyes - backwards and cross-eyed - and a Cheshire smile onto a sculpted head, grotesquely over-exaggerating and fracturing classic indicators of femininity. "Untitled" by Hannah Höch (1919) vs "Family", featuring Eline Bocxtaele, photographed by Pierre Debusschere for Exhibition Mag (2018) It is rich in symbolism and considered one of Höch's masterpieces.) (To be honest, this complicated work is deserving of far more analysis than what I just provided. Despite their weightless, carefree dancing, the figures feel claustrophobically trapped by the dizzing components that make up modern life. Fragmented across the page are symbols of science and technological progress (can you spot Albert Einstein?), as well as icons of German militarism. A map of Europe on the lower right hand corner darkens countries in which women were granted suffrage. Dismembered, buoyant women - cut from renown actresses and dancers - twirl across the topsy-turvy space amid images of modern technology. One of Höch’s most well known works, "Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany” (1919), celebrates a world in which women are liberated. "Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany” by Hannah Höch (1919) However, there were many instances of systemic discrimination, with women being pigeonholed into low-paying, unskilled jobs and political parties refusing to integrate women into their organizations, leaving them powerless in the legislative sphere. In 1918, women in Germany earned the right to vote and were increasingly entering the workforce, ushering an era of Weimar Germany’s “New Woman”. In particular, much of her work offered a critique on how society viewed and treated women. Photomontages were a form of revolution and protest.Īs one of the few recognized female members of the movement, Höch provided a unique feminist perspective during a distinctly tumultuous time. Photomontages in particular were a popular technique employed by Dadaists, clipping found images from mass media to create a setting that articulated the instability and anger of the world at the time. The Dada movement wasn’t restricted to just the visual mediums, it was incorporated into poetry, musical compositions, literature and theater. This included “nationalist politics, bourgeois values, communicative functions of language, pious social mores.” ( "Looking at Dada" by Sarah Ganz Blythe & Edward Powers) Disillusioned by the violence, Dadaists sought to challenge the traditional political and social structures that allowed the war to come to fruition. It was characterized by an irreverence towards formal artistic strategies and the endorsement of the absurd. Dadaism tapped into the trauma of a destabilized Europe reeling from the effects of the war. Hannah Höch was a pioneering member of the Berlin chapter of the Dada group, a movement which emerged in the wake of World War I. "On the Way to Seventh Heaven" by Hannah Höch (1934) vs Editorial collage with Abby Bass by GL Wood (2015) Hannah Höch - The feminist voice in Dada The fragmentation you see in fashion editorials today are not simply derivatives of paper-cut collages, they harken back to these very movements in Modern Art. That notion of art was challenged in the early 20th century by movements such as Impressionism, Orphism, Cubism, Italian Futurism and many, many more. Paintings were viewed as a window into another world, establishing pictorial mimesis as the greatest reflection of reality. When collages were first introduced as an art form, they were an enormous, controversial departure from established art attitudes. But collages are more than just pretty compositions, they are part of a history of protest. Whenever new technology emerges, collages evolve alongside it, making it feel like a perpetually modern medium. Sometimes mutating contemporary beauties into grotesque figures, sometimes introducing multiples perspectives of clothing or makeup, sometimes simply an exercise in aesthetic pleasure, they remain a popular editorial format. "Dada Will Get You If You Don’t Watch Out: It Is On The Way Here.” - Margery Rex (1921)Ĭollaged fashion images use various techniques to imbue an otherwise ordinary fashion spread with hints of the bizarre.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |