Vek fotomontaže: Retrospektiva Hane Hoh u Whitechapel galeriji
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‘Želim da razlabavim čvrste granice koje mi, arogantna ljudska bića, postavljamo između sebe i dostupnog sveta. Slikama pokušavam da to učinim evidentnim, opipljivim. Želim da pokažem da malo može biti veliko a veliko malo, u pitanju je samo pozicija sa koje prosuđujemo, tako da svaki koncept gubi na vrednosti i naši gestovi gube značaj. Takođe želim da pokažem da postoje milioni drugih opravdanih tačaka gledišta osim tvoje i moje. Danas prikazujem svet iz perspektive mrava, sutra možda onako kako ga vidi mesec, a potom razne druge životinje. Ja sam ljudsko biće, ali na osnovu svoje ograničene mašte ja mogu biti most’.[1]
Ovako je 1929-te godine pisala Hana Hoh (Hannah Höch, 1889-1978), jedna od centralnih figura berlinskog dada pokreta, umetnica zaslužna za ključni razvoj kolaža i fotomontaže dvadesetog veka. U današnje vreme sveprisutne digitalne montaže i manipulacije slikom, njeni radovi – od ranih eksperimenata sa apstrakcijom i početaka u berlinskoj dadi posle Prvog svetskog rata, pa sve do razvijenog stila u duhu Fantastične apstrakcije posle drugog svetskog rata – donose iznenađujucu svežinu ali i zavidno poznavanje medijuma i forme.
Prva samostalna izlozba Hane Hoh u Velikoj Britaniji dešava se skoro sto godina od nastanka njenih prvih kolaža. Ovo je svakako istorijski propust, ali opsežna izložba u Whitechapel galeriji najzad objedinjuje na jednom mestu oko 120 radova na papiru iz brojnih internacionalnih kolekcija.
Hoh, poreklom iz buržoaske porodice iz Turingije, dolazi u Berlin 1915. Kao studentkinja škole za primenjenu umetnost kod profesora Emila Orlika, već iste godine počinje da crta i slika apstraktne kompozicije. U početku se bavi dizajnom tekstila, ali dosta brzo postaje svesna svog umetničkog ali i političkog, društvenog i ekonomskog okruženja. Dok su drugi članovi berlinske avangarde još uvek zaokupljeni figuracijom (ekspresionisti i fovisti su u punoj snazi), Hoh se okreće apstrakciji i prenosi svoje motive sa tekstila i krojeva u apstraktne kolaže i crteže. Duh avangarde radikalizuje njena politička i estetska interesovanja, tako da 1920-e ona punopravno učestvuje u Prvoj Internacionalnoj izložbi berlinskih dadaista. Društveno subverzivniji kao grupa od ciriškog ogranka dade jer stvaraju u politički uzavrelom kontekstu, berlinski dadaisti blisko se povezuju sa umetnicima i intelektualacima avangardnog i komunističkog ubeđenja, razmenjujući ideje sa grupama iz Ciriha, Amsterdama, Moskve, Pariza i Njujorka.
U takvom kontekstu, Hana Hoh razvija svoj odnos prema umetnosti kao formi društvene i estetske pobune, i bira fotomontažu kao svoj primarni izraz. 1915, kada Hoh počinje da se bavi foto-kolažima, fotografija postoji već stotinak godina. Jedan nedokumentovani citat koji se pojavljuje u knjizi Hansa Rihtera Dada i u članku Džošue Kajnda “Nepoznati Gros” (1967) navodi da je Georg Gros, skupa sa Džonom Hartfildom, 1916-e “izmislio fotomontažu jednog jutra u svom studiju u južnom delu grada, u pet ujutru jednog majskog jutra (…) nismo bili svesni njenih neverovatnih mogućnosti, ni trnovite ali uspešne karijere koja je iščekivala ovaj novi izum”. [Džosua Kajnd, “Nepoznati Gros”, Studio International, mart 1967, str. 144-145.] Neverovatan izum, uzevši u obzir da je fotomontaža u to vreme korišćena u praksi studijskih fotografa. Ono što je Gros možda imao u vidu je da su asemblaži i kubistički kolaži našli put do dadaističke površine skupa sa opsesijom mehanikom i politikom – što je Hana Hoh već otkrila i počela da primenjuje, a o čemu nema ni slova kod Rihtera, Kajnda niti igde drugde. Hoh uočava rane upotrebe fotomontaže i kolaža u porodičnoj upotrebi fotografije – seckanje i sklapanje portreta u kompozitne slike iznad kreveta, lepljenje glave oca ili brata na već gotovu fotografiju vojnika, postavljanje porodične scene na prethodno snimljeni romantični pejsaž i sl. Dadaistička fotomontaža prirodno se nadovezuje na kolaže foto-žurnalizma i novinske reklame posle prvog svetskog rata, ali za razliku od porodičnog ili medijski-primenjenog kolaža, fotomontaža slobodne forme koju koristi Hoh i drugi dadaisti je eksplorativna sloboda kreativnosti i asocijativnosti iskazanih kroz strogo korišćenje boje i forme. Pozvana da precizira najznačajniji umetnički doprinos berlinske dade, Hoh kaže: ‘Verujem da smo bili prva umetnička grupa koja je otkrila i sistematski koristila mogućnosti fotomontaže’.
‘Pozajmili smo ovu ideju od jednog trika kojim su se služili zvanični fotografi pruskih vojnih odseka. Oni su koristili kompleksne oleo-litografske okvire, koji su predstavljali grupe uniformisanih muškaraca slikanih ispred pejsaža ili vojnih baraka, ali sa izrezanim licima. U ove paspartue fotografi su umetali foto-portrete svojih klijenata, koje bi onda naknadno ručno bojili. Estetska svrha, ako je uopšte i bilo, ovih primitivnih fotomontaža, je bila da idealizuje stvarnost, dok je dadaistička fotomontaža težila da nečemu nestvarnom da privid nečeg stvarnog, što je uhvaćeno foto-kamerom’.[2]
Dadaistička fotomontaža falsifikuje objektivnost kamere, kreirajući ‘fabrikovane halucinacije’ (Eduard Roditi). Za razliku od kubista koji kolaž koriste kao teksturu ili Kurta Švitersa koji ga koristi da izdigne beznačajan, nađeni predmet na nivo umetničkog dela, Hoh i berlinski dadaisti koriste kolaž kao metod prenošenja savremenih fotografskih procesa i tehničkih inovacija u umetnost.[3] Ono što Hanu Hoh razlikuje od ostalih dadaista je višeslojnost izraza (za razliku od eksplicitnih parola Džona Hartfilda ili groteske Georga Grosa) i ambivalentan odnos prema vajmarskom idealu Nove Žene. Kroz njene kolaže se reflektuje skepsa prema fobijama i mitovima ovog perioda, najjasnije vidljiva kroz kompozitne parodije kojima Hoh kritikuje izmanipulisanu društvenu svest koja direktno prethodi nacional-socijalizmu.
Iako je njen odnos prema ljudskoj formi radikalizovan na sličan način kao kod drugih dadaista, Hoh kroz amalgame etnografskih predstava o egzotičnom ‘Afričkom’ telu (omiljenom kod Primitivaca) i fetišizirane Nove Žene (koja se izborila za pravo glasa i izvesne seksualne i profesionalne slobode, ali je tek čeka emancipacija svesti), predstavlja modernu ženu ne kao muzu, već kao provokatora. Zbog ovoga se Hana Hoh do danas nepravedno osuđuje za ne-feministički stav prema arhetipu moderne žene, jer se ne prepušta njenom nekritičkom slavljenju već vidi i drugu stranu. Setimo se samo poznatih motiva Oskara Kokoške koji je (kao i mnogi drugi modernisti) do kraja karijere ženu koristio kao reducirani simbol muze ili zavodnice (Nevesta Vetra, itd.). U njegovom pozorišnom komadu Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Ubica, nada svih žena, napisan 1909, a postavljen 1917), ekspresionistički Muškarac je osvajač a Žena opasna zver, koju on na kraju komada simbolično i bukvalno ubija. Ovu egzistencijalističku sudbinu dele i druge žene, napr. Vedekindova Lulu, te stoga ne čudi što Hoh nalazi načine da uzvrati: njena kratka priča Der Maler (1920) govori o slikaru-geniju pod imenom Himmel (nebo). Njegova žena nesmotreno traži od njega da prekine svoj stvaralački zanos i pomogne oko pranja suđa jer je zaokupljena porođajem; isfrustriran, umetnik slika ‘Žensku Dušu’ na opštu radost umetničke scene. Ženska duša na slici predstavljena je kao zelena pera mladog luka – nešto jeftino, prozaično i za jednokratnu upotrebu.
U kompleksnom kolažu Rez Kuhinjskim Nožem Kroz Poslednju Kulturnu Epohu Vajmarske stomačine u Nemačkoj (1919), umetnica koristi ‘dada nož’ kao satirično oružje protiv dominantne muške pozicije u kulturi. U samom centru kolaža je mala, obezglavljena figura igračice Nidi Impekoven koja žonglira preveliku glavu slikarke Kete Kolvic. Ova figurica je spakovana u tešku artiljeriju mašinskih elemenata, simbola progresa i muških figura u gradaciji važnosti od Kajzera,umetnika (njenog tadašnjeg ljubavnika Raula Hausmana) do boksera. Ovo je svet u kome ima mesta samo za žensku formu, ne i za ženski glas.
Iako od osnivanja učestvuje u radu berlinske dade, Hoh se skoro uopšte ne pojavljuje u dadaističkim publikacijama, kojima dominiraju Bader, Gros, Hartfild i Hausman. Za ovo je makar delom zaslužna njena burna veza sa Hausmanom, koja se završava 1922. Hoh objavljuje nekoliko Merzbilder za Švitersovu publikaciju Merz, ali za razliku od Švitersa koji nalazi inspiraciju na đubristu, Hoh koristi slike iz masovnih medija: mašine, krojačke, geometrijske i tipografske elemente, i ljudsku formu. U ovom smislu njen rad predstavlja nastavak mehaničkih procesa moderne fotografije i tipografije.
1926-te Hoh upoznaje holandsku pesnikinju Til Brugman i od 1929-1935. živi sa njom u Hagu. Ovaj period daje karakterno kompleksnije radove složenije forme. Serija kolaža Etnografski Muzej (Hoh ju je takođe nazvala die Sammlung, zbirka) sastoji se od dvadesetak radova nastalih u periodu od oko pet godina bave se duhovitom subverzijom rasnih i rodnih odnosa.[4] Hoh opisuje kolaž kao proces razlaganja i sklapanja, aktiviranja i otuđenja fotografske slike; snaga kolaža proizilazi od stepena njegovog potencijala za otuđenjem originalnog fotografskog predloška.[5] Za Etnografski Muzej koristi kataloge kolekcija afričke umetnosti i sopstvene fotografije iz poseta muzejima u kombinaciji sa reklamama iz časopisa, stvarajući subverzivne figure u kojima su arijevska koketnost i seksepil i egzotika afričke kulture ironično amalgamirane u jedno.
Po dolasku nacista na vlast, većina dadaista je emigrirala: Gros i Rihter u Ameriku, Šviters u Norvešku a potom Veliku Britaniju, Hausman u Francusku. Hoh napusta Berlin gde je poznata kao ‘kulturni boljševik’ i seli se u ruralno predgrađe Heiligensee. Iste godine stupa u brak sa Kurt Matiesom (razilaze se šest godina kasnije). Ovaj relativno kratki period do kraja rata karakteriše intelektualna izolacija i poetski kolaži u kojima fragmenti plesa, bestežinskog stanja i prostora mogu biti protumačeni kao želja za slobodom. I pored povremenih povrataka na monohromni kolaž, njen posleratni ciklus teži potpunoj slobodi izraza neomeđenoj prethodnim stilom. Hoh nastavlja da koristi fotomontažu u sve apstraktnijem obliku, sa sve kompleksnijim i slojevitijim korišćenjem boje, motivima botaničke fotografije, posleratnih reklama, arhitekture i drugih fragmenata iz stranica časopisa. Boja u njenim kolažima dobija dubinu i dimenziju.Ovi vizuelni eksperimenti, koje Hoh izvodi bez predloška ili skice, razvijaju se precizno i polako. Vidno je njeno poznavanje forme i disciplinovano posmatranje prirode koja je okružuje.
Svi naši snovi (1967) je na prvi pogled lirska kompozicija koja s blagom parodijom imitira kružne forme avangarde. Kompozitni elementi su lopte za igru i mehuri od sapunice. Koliko su te forme ođek nekadašnjih ideja? Hoh izbegava ilustrativni eskejpizam i sentimentalnost, tvrdeći: ‘ove fantazme nisu bekstva od stvarnosti, one su napadi, i ne bave se kreiranjem raspoloženja već strogo posmatraju stvarnost i porede je sa idealom. Ova umetnost je poziv i podsticaj među ruševinama sveta koji je nestao’.[6] Njen bogati posleratni opus – radovi Angst (1970), San preslice (1952), Oko crvenih usana (1967), Malo sunce (1969) i dr. stvarani u novonastaloj Istočnoj Nemačkoj, pravo su iznenađenje ove retrospektive.
Hoh u svojim poslednjim intervjuima ne odaje utisak umetnice koja za bilo čim žali, iako je jasno da bi puno bolje prošla da je ostala dosledna samo jednom stilu. Umesto toga, ona bira slobodu: Oduvek sam sumnjala da umetnici koji se fokusiraju na sebe i svoj prepoznatljivi stil stiču više popularnosti i uspeha. Ali ja više volim sposobnost za razvoj, promenu i obogaćenje stila čak iako me stalna želja za evoluiranjem košta uspeha’.[7]
Posmatrajući fotomontažu kao sistem organizovanja slike i smisla u umetničkoj praksi od radova Hane Hoh do danas, zanimljivo je primetiti rastuću sofisticiranost slike koju ne prati uvek i podjednako iznijansirana i razvijena kritika stvarnosti, pogotovo u periodu sve ubrzanije digitalne manipulacije slike. Iako se foto-kolaž kao forma (u softverskom ili retro izdanju) danas skoro neizostavno koristi, vrlo retko se javljaju umetnici koji idejno daleko iskoračuju iz duha svog vremena. U ovom smislu retrospektiva Hane Hoh je posebno važna kao prekursor značajnoj retrospektivi Ričarda Hamiltona koja se otvara krajem februara u Tate Modern. Hamilton, koji važi za jednog od osnivača pop art-a, u radovima koristi kolaže filmskih postera, časopisa i fotografija slavnih ličnosti u kombinaciji sa industrijski omasovljenom robom, što je direktan nastavak na konceptualna angažovanja Hane Hoh. Mnogi savremeni umetnici koji koriste kolaž kao osvrt na nostalgiju i fetiš kulturnog sećanja – kao što je Belgijanka Katrin de Blauver, ili tipografski kolaž Luis Reith-a koji formalno podseća na rane tekstilne motive Hane Hoh, pa čak i neonostalgični radovi hipsterskih post-steampunk ilustratora poput Džuli Gajzer ili Dan Hiliera još uvek se oslanjaju na ideje manifestovane u radu Hane Hoh i Berlinskih dadaista, koji su koristili fotomontažu ne samo kao dekorativnu repliku stvarnosti, već kao izraz buntovne satire društva.
[1] Iz kataloga prve samostalne izlozbe Hane Hoh u Kunstzaal De Bron, Hag; Rotterdamsche Kring, Roterdam; Kunstzaal Van Lier, Amsterdam, 1929. Reprodukovano u katalogu Hannah Höch, Whitechapel gallery, London, and Prestel Verlag, Munich, London and New York, 2014, p. 140.
[2] Hana Hoh u razgovoru sa Eduardom Roditijem More Dialogues on Art, Santa Barbara, Ross-Erikson, 1982. Reprodukovano u Hana Hoh, Whitechapel, Prestel, Minhen, London i Njujork, 2014, str. 187.
[3] Hana Hoh u razgovoru sa Eduardom Roditijem, str. 187.
[4] Iako Etnografski muzej nije osmisljen kao serija već prati njena interesovanja u tom periodu, danas se uzima kao primer njenog najzrelijeg rada. Ovo je delom i zbog pojačanog interesovanja savremenih kustosa za teme rase i roda.
[5] Hannah Höch, “Zur Collage”, Hannah Höch. Collagen aus den Jahren 1916-1971, exhib. cat., Berlin, Academie der Kunste, 1971, str. 18-19.
[6] Hana Hoh, “Fantastische Kunst”, Fantasten-Ausstellung, katalog, Berlin, Galerie Rosen, 1946.
[7] Hana Hoh u razgovoru sa Edvard Roditijem, str. 192.
Photomontage century: Hannah Höch in the Whitechapel Gallery, London
‘I would like to blur the firm borders that we human beings, cocksure as we are, are inclined to erect around everything that is accessible to us. I paint pictures in which I try to make this evident, tangible. I want to show that small can be large, and large small, it is just the standpoint from which we judge that changes, and every concept loses its validity, and all our human gestures lose their validity. I also want to show that there are millions and millions of other justifiable points of view beside yours and mine. Today I would portray the world from ant’s eye view and tomorrow, as the moon sees it, perhaps, and then as many other creatures may see it. I am a human being, but on the strength of my imagination – tied as it is – I can be a bridge’. [1]
These words, written in 1929, belong to Hannah Höch (1889-1978), one of the central figures of the Berlin Dada movement, the artist uniquely responsible for the development of collage and photomontage of the twentieth century. Her vision is never more relevant than in the era of digital editing and image manipulation, when her work – from the early experiments with abstraction and Berlin Dada beginnings between the wars to the style developed in the spirit of Fantastic Abstraction after World War 2 – retained its exquisite freshness and a solid knowledge of medium and form.
The first retrospective of Hannah Höch’s works in the UK takes place at the Whitechapel Gallery in London nearly a century after her first collages were made; an omission compensated with a lavish collection of nearly 120 works on paper from numerous international collections.
Höch, originally from a bourgeois family in Thuringia, came to Berlin in 1915. As a student at the School of Art under Professor Emil Orlik, she began to draw and paint abstract compositions the same year. Initially engaged in textile design, Höch rather quickly became aware of her artistic, political, social and economic context. While other members of the Berlin avant-garde were still engaged in figuration (Fauvism and Expressionism was at the full force), Höch turns to abstraction and transfers the motifs from her textile and pattern designs into abstract collages and drawings. Her aesthetic interests radicalised by the spirit of the avant-garde, she participates in the First International Exhibition of the Berlin Dada in 1920. More subversive than the Zurich branch, as they work in a more politically charged context, Berlin Dadaists become closely associated with avant-garde artists and intellectuals of communist beliefs from Zurich, Amsterdam, Moscow, Paris and New York.
In this environment, Hannah Höch develops her relationship to art as a form of social and aesthetic rebellion, and chooses photomontage as her primary form of expression. In 1915, when Höch starts making her first photo-collages, photography has been around for a century. An undocumented quotation that found its way into Hans Richter’s book Dada and Joshua Kind’s 1967 article entitled ‘The Unknown Grosz’ quotes Georg Grosz as saying that, together with John Heartfield, in 1916 he ‘invented photomontage in my studio at the south end of town at five o’clock one May morning (…) we had no idea of the immense possibilities, or of the thorny but successful career that awaited the new invention’.[2] An incredible discovery, and yet photomontage was already regularly used as a part of studio photography practice. What Grosz may have meant is that the assemblages and Cubist collages found their way into Dada surface and its obsession with the mechanical and the political, something Hannah Höch had already begin to discover for herself – and of which there is no mention in Richter, Kind or elsewhere. Höch noted the early use of photomontage and collage in family photos – cutting and assembling composite family portraits, sticking the head of a father or brother on a ready made photograph of a soldiers, settings of family scenes on pre-filmed romantic landscape, and so on. Dada photomontage naturally builds on the photojournalistic collages and newspaper advertisements that were popular between the two wars, but unlike in private or applied media use of collage, the freeform photomontage used by Höch and other Dadaists utilises the exploratory creative freedom and associative expression through rigorous use of colour and form.
When asked to specify the most significant artistic contribution of the Berlin Dada, Höch said: ‘I believe we were the first group of artists to discover and develop systematically the possibilities of photomontage’.[3]
‘We borrowed the idea from a trick of the official photographers of the Prussian army regiments. They used to have elaborate oleo-lithographed mounts, representing a group of uniformed men with a barracks or a landscape in the background, but with the faces cut out; in these mounts, the photographers then inserted photographic portraits of the faces of their customers, generally colouring them later by hand. But the aesthetic purpose, if any, of this very primitive kind of photomontage was to idealise reality, whereas the Dada photomonteur set out to give to something entirely unreal all the appearances of something real that had actually been photographed’.[4]
Dada photomontage falsified the testimony of the camera, creating ‘fabricated hallucinations’ (Edward Roditi). Unlike cubist collages, which were used as a texture, or Kurt Schwitters’ works that used collage to elevate the insignificant found object to the level of art, Höch and the Berlin Dada used collage as a method of bringing together the mechanical processes, technical innovations and political satire into works of art.What differentiatesHöch from the other Dadaists is her multiple layering of expression (in contrast to John Hartfield’s explicit slogans or George Grosz’ grotesques), and an ambivalence towards the Weimar ideal of the New Woman. Her works reflect a healthy skepticism towards the phobias and myths of the period, visible in the composite parodies Höch uses to criticise the manipulated social consciousness that directly predates National Socialism.
Although she radicalises human form in ways stylistically similar to the other Dadaists, Höch amalgamates the ethnographic representations of the exotic ‘African’ body (favoured by the Primitives) and the fetishised New Woman (who won her right to vote and certain sexual and professional freedoms, but was far from a fully emancipated consciousness) into an image of modern woman not as a muse, but as a provocateur. I assume this accounts for occasional condemnation of Höch as a non-feminist: in her regard of the archetype of the modern woman she sees the underbelly of the uncritical celebration of modernity. We need to remember the motifs that Oskar Kokoschka (and almost all other male modernists) used throughout his career, representing woman as an archetypal muse or a temptress (Bride of the Wind, etc.). In his theatre play Mörder, Hoffnungder Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women, written in 1909 and staged famously in 1917), Kokoschka introduces Man as an expressionist warrior and Woman as a dangerous beast, which Man eventually symbolically and literally kills. This existential fate is shared by other women (cue Wedekind’s Lulu), so it’s not surprising that Höch has her revenge: in her short story DerMaler (1920) the painter-genius of a ridiculous name Himmel (Heaven) is repeatedly inconvenienced by his wife asking him to stop his creative endeavours and help with the dishes, as she is going through labour. Frustrated, Himmel paints the Female Soul, to the rapture of the (male) artistic community. The soul of the female is represented as tender greens of spring onion – something cheap, prosaic and disposable.
In the complex collage Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnittmitdem Küchenmesserdurch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauch kulturepoche Deutschlands, 1919-1920), Höch uses the ‘dada knife’ as a satirical weapon against the dominant male culture. A tiny figure in the very centre of the collage is the headless dancer NiddyImpekoven, juggling above her an oversized head of the painter Käthe Kollwitz. The small figure is surrounded with the heavy artillery of mechanical elements, symbols of progress and male figures in hierarchical gradation from the Kaiser, an artist (her former lover RaoulHausmann), to various boxers and weight lifters. This is a world with barely enough room for a female form, let alone a female voice.
Although she participates in the work of Berlin Dada from its inception, Höch is almost never in any of the Dada publications, habitually dominated by Baader, Grosz, Hartfield and Hausmann. This is at least partly due to her stormy relationship with Hausmann, which ended in 1922. Höch publishes several Merzbilder for Kurt Schwitters’ publication Merz, but unlike Schwitters who finds his inspiration in the rubbish, Höch uses imagery from the mass media: machinery, tailoring, geometric and typographic elements, and the human form. In this sense her work continues the process of mechanisation of modern photography and typography.
In 1926 Höch meets the Dutch poet Til Brugman and from 1929 to 1935 lives with her in The Hague. This period is characterised by the works of more complex character and form. The series of collages The Ethnographic Museum (Höch also calls it die Sammlung, Collection) consists of twenty works created over five years that playfully subvert racial and gender relationships. Höch describes collage as a process of fragmentation and reassembly, activation and alienation of photographic image; the power of a collage depends on the extent of its potential for alienation of the original photographic image.[5]The Ethnographic Museum uses cutouts from the catalogues of African art collections and Höch’s personal photos from the museum visits, combined with magazine advertisements, creating subversive figures in which the Aryan coquetry and sex appeal blends with the African exoticism.
Upon the arrival of Nazis to power, the majority of Dadaists emigrate: Grosz and Richter to America, Schwitters to the United Kingdom via Norway, Hausmann to France. Höch leaves Berlin where she is known as a ‘cultural Bolshevik’ and moves to a rural suburb of Heiligensee. That same year, she marries Kurt Matthies (and divorces him six years later). This relatively short period until the end of the war is characterised by intellectual isolation, resulting in poetic collages in which fragments of dance sequences, weightlessness and space could be interpreted as a desire for freedom. Despite occasional return to the monochrome, Höch’s postwar output aims for a complete liberation of expression unburdened by the previous styles. Höch maintains the use of photomontage in increasingly abstract form and with more complex and layered use of colour, featuring botanical photography, postwar advertising, architecture and other fragments from the magazines. Her colour gains depth and dimension. These visual experiments, which Höch executes without preconceived template or a sketch, develop slowly and with great accuracy, showing mastery of form and disciplined observation of nature.
All our dreams (Alle Unsere Traume, 1967) at first glance appears as a lyrical pastiche that mildly parodies the circular form of the avant-garde. Its composite elements are various playing balls and soap bubbles. How do these forms echo her past ideas? Höch is very specific in her avoidance of illustrative escapism and sentimentality: ‘These phantasms are not escapist, they are attacks, and no longer about creative moods. They set about reality with a hitherto unseen rigour and compare it to the ideal. This art is a call and an exhortation in amongst the ruins of a lost world’.[6] Her post-war opus – works such as Fear (Angst), 1970; Spindle’s Dream (Traum eider Spindel), 1952; Around a Red Mouth (Um einen rotten Mund) c. 1967; Little Sun (Kleine Sonne) 1969, and others, created in the newly formed East Germany, are the true surprise of this retrospective.
Höch’s last interviews do not reveal an artist regretting anything, although it’s clear that she would have fared far better had she remained consistent with one style. Instead, she chooses experimentation: ‘I have often suspected that an artist’s concentration on his own self and on one particular style of his own that is always recognisable may lead more easily to popularity and success. But I still prefer to enjoy my own ability to develop, change and enrich my style even if my constant evolution as an artist deprives me of many an easy success’.[7]
Looking at photomontage as a system of organising image and meaning within the artistic practice from Hannah Höchuntil today, it is perhaps interesting to note that the growing sophistication of the image is not always followed by equally nuanced and developed criticality, especially in the era of rapid digital image manipulation. Although photo-collage became an everyday norm (almost every image we see is retouched and montaged, either in digital or in its retro, paper-based form), artists that acknowledge and undermine the medium are relatively few. In this sense, Hannah Höch retrospective is an important precursor to the upcoming Tate Modern retrospective of Richard Hamilton (opening on the 27th of February). Hamilton, considered one of the founders of Pop Art, prolifically collages film posters, magazines and celebrity photos, and combines them with industrially produced objects, in direct continuation of Höch’s conceptual engagement. Contemporary artists that use collage as fetishised mirror to culture memory – such as the Belgian Katrin de Blauwe, or the typographic collage of Luis Reith which formally resemble Höch’s early textile motifs, even the nostalgic works of hipster steam punk illustrators like Julie Geiser or Dan Hillier – are indebted to the ideas manifested in the work of Hannah Höch and the Berlin Dadaists, who used collage not just as a decorative replica of reality but as an expression of rebellious satire of society.
[1] From the catalogue of the first solo exhibition of Hannah Höch in Kunstzaal De Bron, Der Hague; Rotterdamsche Kring, Roterdam; Kunstzaal Van Lier, Amsterdam, 1929. Reproduced in the catalogue Hannah Höch, Whitechapel gallery, Prestel Verlag, Munich, London and New York, 2014, p. 140.
[2] Joshua Kind, ‘The Unknown Grosz’, Studio International, March 1967, p 144-145.
[3] Hannah Höch in conversation with Eduard Roditi, More Dialogues on Art, Santa Barbara, Ross-Erikson, 1982. Reproduced in Hannah Höch, Whitechapel; Prestel, Munchen, London and New York, 2014, p. 187.
[4] Hannah Höch in conversation with Eduard Roditi, Ibid., p. 187.
[5] Hannah Höch, “Zur Collage”, Hannah Höch. Collagen aus den Jahren 1916-1971, exhib. cat., Berlin, Academie der Kunste, 1971, p. 18-19.
[6] Hannah Höch, “Fantastische Kunst” (“Fantastic Art”), in the exhibition catalogue: Fantasten-Ausstellung, Berlin: Galerie Rosen, 1946, reproduced in Hannah Höch, Whitechapel Gallery, Prestel, Munich, London and New York, 2014. p. 233.