PHVP3409 Experimental and Analytical Production with a Major Project: Hannah Höch

Hannah Höch

A pioneer of the art form, photomontage.
Schooled in glass design and graphic arts.
Her involvement in the Dada movement began with the relationship/friendship with Paoul Hausmann, in 1915, who was a member of the Berlin Dada movement. However Hoch's own involvement really began in 1919.
After her schooling, she worked in the handicrafts department for Ullstein Verlag, designing dress and embroidery patterns for Die Dame and Die Praktische Berlinerin. The influence of this early working can be seen in her later working involving references to press patterns and textiles.
A forerunner in criticising society and politics in the form of photomontages
It was in 1918 during a vacation Hoch and Hausmann were on at the Ostsee, they claimed to have discovered the principle of photomontage in the form of the cut-ad-paste images that soldiers on the front sent to their families. It was this find that significantly influenced Hoch's artistic production, becoming her preferred medium for her social and political critiques of the 1920's. In addition to mass-media photographs, Hoch incorporated lace and handiwork patterns into her montages - combining the traditional language of women's craft with that of modern mass culture.

The Dada movement was an artistic and literary movement that began in 1916, arising as a reaction to World War 1. This art movement challenged every convention and scandalised bourgeois society. Hannah Hoch is recognised as the only German woman who participated in Dadaism at the time. This is also thought of as an important feminist achievement by many.
Many of the men involved in Dada wasn't appreciative of Hannah's female involvement and opposed her being included in their first international exhibit held in 1921. Hans Richter (the unofficial spokesperson of the Berlin Dadaist movement) referred to her as "the girl who procured sandwiches, beer and coffee, on a limited budget".
Some would say these oppositions had merely bettered her art and motivation.
“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.”
Indeed, one of Hoch's primary preoccupations was the representation of the "new woman" of the Weimar Republic, whose social role and personal identity, were in a complex process of redefinition in the postwar period. Woman enjoyed new freedoms, including the right to vote in 1918 and an increased presence in the working world, albeit in low-paid positions. The subsequent increase in disposable income made women a prime audience for the mass press, which became a venue for the expression of desires and anxieties associated with women's rapidly transforming identities.

Dompteuse (Tamar), 1930, depicts a mannequin figure of a woman seated, arms crossed, looking down at a sea lion. Ultimately the pose suggests a domination over the sea lion which is much smaller in scale compared to the mannequin. Yet the tamer appears to sit in a meditative pose, while the sea lion engages the viewer with a sly, uncanny gaze. Upon closer inspection the se lion is wearing makeup, and the mannequin appears to be porcelain like and looks quite passive. Moreover, the eyes of both sea lion and mannequin look almost the same. unifying the two images. These contradictions promotes confusion about who really is dominant, the mannequin or the sea lion. Hoch poses the question which pair of eyes is engaging the viewer. First, we see a pair of eyes and then the other. In this way the viewer is confused between subject and object.. Hoch uses this confusion in terms of gender, posing the question - are we viewing in terms of gender of self or other?

She rejected the literal (or as she coined it, "tendentious") approach to Dadaism, and developed her own unique style - gaining a wider audience and appreciation.
She drew inspiration from the collage work and Pablo Picasso and fellow Dadaist Hurt Schwitters, sharing similarly dynamic and layered styles of work. Their approach suited Hoch's sensibility than the overtly political propaganda of Heartfield.
Many of Hannah Hoch's works still appear modern, or perhaps timeless, down to the sophistication of her approach and the universatility of her subjects.