I went on a trip to London today to the Whitechapel gallery to see the Hannah Höch exhibition. Before the exhibition I didn't really know much about Hannah Höch's work which surprised me as she has been such an influential figure and her aesthetic photo montage style really appeals to me.
The exhibition contained over 100 works from various different collections, following her career from the 1910s to the 1970s. One of the main factors I noticed about the exhibition was the cyclical journey of her work; as her career developed Höch's style became that of cleverly constructed photo montages such as her work 'from an Ethnographic Museum' but then her work goes through a period of experimental abstractism before suddenly returning to how it was before. I like this idea of finding a style that works well and exploring away from it but returning again to what originally inspired her near the end of her career.
"My style had become increasingly abstract, thought I occasionally reverted, especially in photomontages… to themes and forms of the same kind as those of my Dada period of 1920. I suppose every imaginative artist has some recurring obsessions."
Balanced: 'Ohne Titel', 1930
In the 1920s Hannah Höch was significantly influenced by Dadaism, a movement that was born out of a negative reaction to the destruction and horror of WW1, using a form of anti-art. Höch in particular became part of the photo montage movement, using scissors and glue to reuse images presented by the media in a response to their views on modern life. Her work aimed to capture the style of 1920s avant-garde theatre and explore her ideas on the evolution of the new woman in Germany after the war. She found working with found imagery and photography to be refreshing new territory that opened up new avenues for her work, both visually and ideologically:
"The peculiar characteristics of photography and its approaches have opened up new and immensely fantastic field for a creative human being: a new, magical territory, for the discovery of which freedom is the first prerequisite…whenever we want to force this "photo matter" to yield new forms, we must be prepared for a journey of discovery…we must be open to the beauties if fruity…these beauties, wandering and extravagant, obligingly enrich our fantasy."
Flucht (Flight), 1931
Höch's work developed to question stereotypes and the concept of beauty and relationships, often exploring racial and gender clichés. She combined female figures with found objects, shape and pattern to create striking pieces that invite the viewer to question what it is they see. After WW2 her work took more abstract turn as she aimed to make the origins of her cut-out material less apparent, and her work began to respond much more to the events that were happening in the world around her, such as the advancements in the 1950s in space travel.
Kleine Sonne (Little Sun), 1969
What resonated with me the most about Höch's work was her style and process; her images were calculated and well-thought out with brilliant composition, and yet her edges were rough and it had that choppy cut and paste feel about it. Her works bold and striking with a great deal of care and passion but it made me realise that art doesn't have to be delicate and perfect to portray that which has relieved me a bit of that sense of preciousness about my own practice. I feel that in 3rd year this is something that I am beginning to understand and come to terms with although it is by no means going to be easy to put in practice! It also a great opportunity to see her photographic albums and collage books which were huge portable libraries of material to work with, which is something that many artists are doing today with texture libraries and materials they can quickly access for work in future. I think that I am going to work on composing ongoing texture and found material catalogues to save myself some of the researching and hunting time in future.
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