• Home
  • About
    • Straight Up
    • Jan Herman
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

La Dada Mama

July 21, 2010 by Jan Herman

More from the e-mail bag:

Ah yes, what a BOLD approach to human physiognomy, I must admit, in those collages you show here!

And yet, being a Höch aficionado I’ll have to insist it wasn’t Mr Paolozzi but Hannah Höch who first applied a human silhouette cut-out in her collage work, back in 1931, in Die starken Männer.

In fact already her 1919 work Da Dandy features the silhouette of a male head in profile, which she filled with clippings of female faces. And 1918 was the year when that famed and fab dada couple, Höch and Hausmann, invented the photo montage, I’m told?

At right: Die starken Männer,
Collage by Hannah Höch, 1931
VG Bild-Kunst
Photo: Liedtke & Michel

I’m sure you’re all familiar with her paintings where Höch liked to transfer collage work onto canvas, and I especially love her 1925 painting Roma (featuring Asta Nielsen and Mussolini) where Höch also included two negative forms, i.e. painting the Nielsen composite photosources sans those parts she had cut out and used in her center montage ?? which obviously shows Asta N. urging Mussolini (after his seizing power in 1922) to get the hell out of Rome…

Ach, what a great and free spirit, our girl from Gotha? After ditching that bitchy Hausmann guy Hannah shacked up with the female Dutch writer Til Brugman in 1926 and in 1938 married Dr Kurt Heinz Matthies whom she’d met on on a Dolomiten Wandertour; Herr Dr Matthies being much younger than her (two decades, sources say).

Like in her essay DIE ERSTEN FOTOMONTAGEN she wrote: “Ein wundersames Neuland, das zu entdecken als erste Voraussetzung hat: Hemmungslosigkeit. Aber nicht Disziplinlosigkeit.”

— zohara

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Pam Plymell says

    July 22, 2010 at 10:09 am

    She was a big influence on Mary Beach (1919-2006)
    (See: http://www.beachpelieuart.com )

  2. JanH says

    July 22, 2010 at 11:17 am

    Glad you mentioned it.
    You can see the influence particularly in Mary’s collages.
    Have a look, folks:
    http://www.beachpelieuart.com/page11/page11.html
    http://www.beachpelieuart.com/page3/page3.html
    http://www.beachpelieuart.com/page1/page1.html

  3. Michael Caplan says

    July 22, 2010 at 11:47 am

    Fantastisch–danke.

Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

Archives

Blogroll

Abstract City
AC Institute
ACKER AWARDS New York
All Things Allen Ginsberg
Antiwar.com
arkivmusic.com
Artbook&
Arts & Letters Daily

Befunky
Bellaart
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal

C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Daily

The Daily Howler
Dark Roasted Blend
DCReport
Deep L
Democracy Now!

Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton

Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Flixnosh (David Elliott’s movie menu)
Fluxlist Europe

Good Reads
The Guardian
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics

Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post

Inter Press Service News Agency
The Intercept
Internet Archive (WayBackMachine)
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
IT: International Times, The Magazine of Resistance

Jacketmagazine
Clive James

Kanopy (stream free movies, via participating library or university)
Henry Kisor
Paul Krugman

Lannan Foundation
Los Angeles Times

Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Moloko Print
Movie Geeks United (MGU)
MGU: The Kubrick Series

National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art

Osborne & Conant
The Overgrown Path

Poets House
Political Irony
Poynter

Quanta Magazine

Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
Rhizome
Rwanda Project

Salon
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Stadtlichter Presse
Studs Terkel
The Synergic Theater

Talking Points Memo (TPM)
TalkLeft
The 3rd Page
Third Mind Books
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
t r u t h o u t

Ubu Web

Vox

The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
The Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
World Catalogue
World Newspapers, Magazines & News Sites

The XD Agency

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in