Hannah Hцch Feminism in Visual Art History Research Paper

Hannah Hцch Feminism in Visual Art
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Hannah Hцch Feminism in Visual Art
Hannah Hцch was a German Dada artist. She was born on 1st November 1889 and died on 31st May 1978. She is renowned for her collage work during the Weimar period, where she was among the originators of photomontage. This was a type of collage where the items she pasted were actual photographs that she pulled from the press. She used her works to dismantle the dichotomy and fable that was created on the ‘New Woman’: a professional, energetic, and androgynous woman who had been packaged to equal man in the society (Hamilton, 2014). Her major interest in the subject was the structuring of the dichotomy and finding responsible for structuring social roles. Some of the key themes presented in her works included political discourse, androgyny, and shifting gender roles. The themes interacted and created a feminist discourse that surrounds her works and encouraged the agency and liberation of women in the Weimar Republic.
Heads of State (1918-1920)
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The collage shows one of the earliest themes pursued by Hцch; her criticism of the leadership of the Weimar Republic. The work shows two German politicians who are comically juxtaposed against a fine background of embroidery, which seemingly catches them like a net. The two politicians are Friedrich Ebert, the German President, and Gustav Noste, the defense minister at the time (Cumming, 2014). This was one of the pieces in which Hцch passed on her message with such simplicity that it contrasts with other works like ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife…’ that sounds like an assault on the senses since they require a deep interpretation.
Dada-Ernst (1920)
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Hцch did Dada-Ernst in 1920, and it has the double interpretation of ‘Dada-Serious’ as well as making an inference to artist Max Ernst. It shows sentimental images that were produced in the 19th century on femininity. They are characterized by being juxtaposed with modern, athletic women. The bare and disembodied women, which is one of the motifs that Hцch recurrently used in her works, are equated with modern-day skyscrapers (Dillon, 2014). Therefore, this piece was a symbol of modernity, which suggests that women have been freed from most of the constraints that limited them in the previous century. This piece rhymes with Hцch’s pursuit of modernity for women and their freedom from social norms that oppressed women in the 18th and previous centuries. According to her, women are now enjoying modernity, thanks to the breakage of the chain of social slavery against women.
From an Ethnographic Museum (1924-30)
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