Hannah Hock and Dadaism free essay sample

They used the aesthetic weapons of collage and photomontage as an anti-artistic means of shocking the public and thus as a way of deconstructing a situation considered absurd. Hannah Hoch and her fellow Berlin Dadaists spoke of their works as â€Å"photo-montages† in part because they liked the anti-fine art connotation the term montage derived from the German term, meaning â€Å"to engineer. (Boswell, 129) Although little vestige of such anti-aestheticism clings to our present apprehension of photomontage, the term still defines the medium: Photo, of course, naming it’s materials and montage, as engineering, specifying the dual process of actual, physical procedure and compositional organization or style. (Boswell, 129) Hannah Hoch’s â€Å"Cut with the Kitchen Knife† which is her major work, this photomontage unites representatives of the former empire, the military and the new, moderate government of the Republic in the â€Å"anti-Dada†. These male figures are paired with photographic fragments of active, energetic women-dancers, athletes and actresses-who animate the work both formally and conceptually. We will write a custom essay sample on Hannah Hock and Dadaism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Also, Hoch identified herself with the political empowerment of women by placing the clipping in the corner she normally reserved for her signature and including a small self-portrait head. That is this photomontage critiqued currently received notions of art and its purported mission. Composed solely of photographs and photographic reproductions that Hoch had cut from widely accessible mass-media periodicals, the work was remarkably self-effacing in style- a testament to Dada’s impatience with Expressionist affirmation of individuality and subjectivity. It shared the International Dada Fair’s underlying theme of anti-militarism, too, for it spoofed well-known male politicians and military figures by endowing them with the body parts of women and animals. Even the riotous tone of Hoch’s densely packed composition echoed the carnivalesque atmosphere of the Dada Fair as a whole. Indeed, Cut with the Kitchen Knife telescoped the methods and meanings of the First International Dada Fair into a single, iconic image. â€Å"Cut with the Kitchen Knife† demonstrates her extraordinary ability to balance many elements in a natural composition, besides being a very early example of a female artist expressing her belief in the power of women. Hannah Hoch was an active artist from 1915 through the early 1970s;yet, at her death in 1978,  she developed her own unique style, which gained a wider audience and appreciation right up to her death in the 1970s. Hoch was still best known as the only women associated with the stridently macho group that was berlin Dada. Hannah Hoch believed that â€Å" photomontage could be used not merely to produce things heavy with political meaning, but that one could also regard it as a means of self-expression and eventually arrive at purely aesthetic works.