Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany

The art piece for this week “Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany” by Hannah Höch. Born Anna Therese Johanne Höch in Gotha, Germany, Hannah first began taking glass design and graphic art classes at the college of Applied Arts in Berlin in 1912, before dropping out during the outbreak of WWI in 1914. She worked at Red Cross in her hometown before returning to study art in Berlin in 1915, where she met artist and writer Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Berlin Dada movement. The group was composed of mostly male artists, who satirized and critiqued German culture and society during the crumbling Weimar republic era after WWI.

Hannah quickly became a trailblazing pioneer in the group. She astutely spliced together photographs or photographic reproductions she cut from popular magazines, illustrated journals, and fashion publications to create revolutionary photomontage pieces with politically subversive content.

Arguably her most prominent piece, “Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany” was first exhibited at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. The term “Cut with the Kitchen Knife” serves as a metaphor to Hannah’s act of slicing through photos, with a noticeable separation of dada and “anti-dada” elements between the lower right and upper left corners. The anti-dada corner centres around key Weimar political figures, while dada features cut diagonally across, including Albert Einstein stating, “dada is not an art trend.” Political figures are scattered throughout the whole piece, ranging from Kaiser Wilhem to Wieland Herzfeld, Johannes Baader and Vladimir Lenin.

The piece also serves as a satire to demonstrate the battle of women against men, especially political leaders, and to celebrate women’s victories. It includes a map in the bottom right corner of countries where women were allowed to vote, and has a cut out of activist Käthe Kollwitz, the first female professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts.

A complex and deeply layered piece, “Cut with the Kitchen Knife” offers a unique and highly dense insight into the Dada movement and its place in post WWI Germany, with an especially unique female perspective of the women activists and artists arising from it.  

Sources

https://www.moma.org/artists/2675

https://blog.fabrics-store.com/2019/05/23/hannah-hoch-rebel-with-a-cause/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/dada-and-surrealism/dada2/a/hannah-hoch-cut-with-the-kitchen-knife-dada-through-the-last-weimar-beer-belly-cultural-epoch-of-germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_H%C3%B6ch