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| Hannah Höch, Untitled from the series "Ethnographic Museum" (1929) Click here for image URL |
Hannah Höch was one of the few woman artists from the Dada Movement. After a development in the collage-making technique she developed the series "Ethnographic Museum", where she produced some of her most well known pieces. The collages juxtapose mainly of women with ethnographic objects, like tribal masks, and usually incorporate plinths and other elements used for presentation. These pieces are simultaneously beautiful and monstrous, and deals with ideas of exoticism and colonial aesthetics with emphasis, mainly, on the figure of the woman. Though never publicly criticising racism or colonial ideals, her photomontage clearly criticises such topics. Her pieces emphasise cultural and racial differences and how all may come together.*
A main exhibition of her works are shown today at the Whitechapel Gallery.
*Based on Whitechapel Gallery exhibition text on "From an Ethnographic Museum".
