was an Austrian artist, founder and central figure of the Dada Movement in Berlin, known especially for his satirical photomontages and provocative writing on art.
Hausmann learned about art through his father, the professional painter and curator Victor Hausmann. The family moved to Berlin in 1900, and in 1908 Hausmann began his formal education at Arthur Lewin-Funcke’s Atelier of Painting and Sculpture, where he focused on anatomy and nude drawing. Upon finishing the workshop, Hausmann connected with German Expressionist painters, in particular Ludwig Meidner and Erich Heckel. He studied lithography and wood carving with Heckel. He also began what would become a lifelong writing career, writing articles critical of the establishment of art for magazines such as Herwarth Walden’s Die Aktion and Der Sturm.
In 1915, Hausmann met the artist Hannah Höch, with whom he began an extramarital affair (Hausmann married his first wife in 1908) and an artistic partnership that lasted until 1922. Hausmann was engaged and loyal to Expressionism until 1917, when he met Richard Hülsenbeck, who introduced him to the principles and philosophy of Dadaism, a new visual and literary artistic movement that had already taken off in other cities in Europe. Dada artists and writers created provocative works that questioned capitalism and conformity, which they believed to be the fundamental motivations for the war that had just ended, and which left chaos and destruction in its wake. Together with Hülsenbeck,George grosz, John Heartfield, Johannes Baader and Wieland Herzfelde, Hausmann founded the Berlin Dada Club and, with Hülsenbeck, wrote a manifesto claiming that Dada was the first art movement to “no longer confront life aesthetically”. Hausmann also wrote a manifesto entitled “The New Material in Painting”, in which he demanded an alternative to traditional oil painting. Both the Dada anti-art manifesto and Hausmann’s statement on new media were recited before an unbridled crowd at the first Dada Club event in Berlin, on April 12, 1918. The night of performance and artist readings was held. at a meeting of the Berlin Sezession, a separatist group of artists, including Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, still heavily devoted to traditional art forms.
By 1918, Hausmann had already begun working primarily on photomontage: collage composite images made by juxtaposing and overlaying fragments of photos and text found in media sources. It is commonly held that Hausmann and Höch discovered the photomontage while on vacation on the Baltic Sea in the summer of 1918. Hausmann’s notable photomontages include Art Critic (1919-20), a satirical image of a man in a suit with a German banknote behind the neck, suffocating him, and A Bourgeois Precision Brain Incites a World Movement (later known as Dada Triumphs; 1920), a montage and watercolor that transmits with text and image the global take on Dada.
Between 1918 and 1920, Hausmann was also busy inventing other forms of anti-art art, such as “optophonetic” poems and “posters”, both composed of interlocking random letters. The former were meant to be interpreted or read aloud; the latter were visual poems created as typography collages. Two of his best-known works of this type are the poster poem OFFEAHBDC and the optophone poem OFFEAH (both from 1918). Hausmann also created, as an offshoot of collage and photomontage, assemblages of found materials, including arguably his most famous work, Mechanical Head: Spirit of Our Age (1919-20), a barber wig doll adorned with a tape measure, a wooden ruler, a tin cup, a glasses case, a piece of metal, parts of a pocket watch, and parts of a camera.
In 1915, Hausmann met the artist Hannah Höch, with whom he began an extramarital affair (Hausmann married his first wife in 1908) and an artistic partnership that lasted until 1922. Hausmann was engaged and loyal to Expressionism until 1917, when he met Richard Hülsenbeck, who introduced him to the principles and philosophy of Dadaism, a new visual and literary artistic movement that had already taken off in other cities in Europe. Dada artists and writers created provocative works that questioned capitalism and conformity, which they believed to be the fundamental motivations for the war that had just ended, and which left chaos and destruction in its wake. Together with Hülsenbeck,George grosz, John Heartfield, Johannes Baader and Wieland Herzfelde, Hausmann founded the Berlin Dada Club and, with Hülsenbeck, wrote a manifesto claiming that Dada was the first art movement to “no longer confront life aesthetically”. Hausmann also wrote a manifesto entitled “The New Material in Painting”, in which he demanded an alternative to traditional oil painting. Both the Dada anti-art manifesto and Hausmann’s statement on new media were recited before an unbridled crowd at the first Dada Club event in Berlin, on April 12, 1918. The night of performance and artist readings was held. at a meeting of the Berlin Sezession, a separatist group of artists, including Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, still heavily devoted to traditional art forms.
By 1918, Hausmann had already begun working primarily on photomontage: collage composite images made by juxtaposing and overlaying fragments of photos and text found in media sources. It is commonly held that Hausmann and Höch discovered the photomontage while on vacation on the Baltic Sea in the summer of 1918. Hausmann’s notable photomontages include Art Critic (1919-20), a satirical image of a man in a suit with a German banknote behind the neck, suffocating him, and A Bourgeois Precision Brain Incites a World Movement (later known as Dada Triumphs; 1920), a montage and watercolor that transmits with text and image the global take on Dada.
Between 1918 and 1920, Hausmann was also busy inventing other forms of anti-art art, such as “optophonetic” poems and “posters”, both composed of interlocking random letters. The former were meant to be interpreted or read aloud; the latter were visual poems created as typography collages. Two of his best-known works of this type are the poster poem OFFEAHBDC and the optophone poem OFFEAH (both from 1918). Hausmann also created, as an offshoot of collage and photomontage, assemblages of found materials, including arguably his most famous work, Mechanical Head: Spirit of Our Age (1919-20), a barber wig doll adorned with a tape measure, a wooden ruler, a tin cup, a glasses case, a piece of metal, parts of a pocket watch, and parts of a camera.
Advertisement
Discussion about this post