Artists

Hannah Höch

Press release

For the first time in Austria, a major museum retrospective will celebrate the work of the German Dada artist Hannah Höch (1889–1978). Höch was a key figure of the 1920s avant-garde and is regarded as one of the inventors of collage and photomontage. Armed with scissors and glue, she explored the power and impact of images in an incisive and ironic way.

The exhibition focuses on Hannah Höch’s collages and photomontages. Little known until now is that Höch regarded photomontage as closely related to film—as “static film” on paper that could create new views of the world through cutting and composing. Both film and photomontage use montage: visually and mechanically dividing the world into separate images and reassembling these to produce new visual experiences.  

In addition to eighty photomontages by Hannah Höch, the exhibition will feature a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, and archival material from the artist’s estate. The works will be placed in a dialogue with film projections by Hans Richter, László Moholy-Nagy, Viking Eggeling, Jan Cornelis Mol, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Dziga Vertov, Fernand Léger, and Paul Painlevé. Höch knew them all and drew inspiration from their work. 

Curated by Martin Waldmeier (Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern).
Assistant Curators: Johanna Hofer and Ana Petrovic