Hannah Hoch (15 January – 23 March 2014)
Hannah Hoch was a pioneer in collage and an important member of the Berlin Dada movement. This happened during the end of WWI. The movement involved artist not creating normal, aesthetic images but instead creating abstract pieces of art that generated difficult questions about society. Her work was inspired by the collage work of Pablo Picasso. People say that she prefered metaphorical imagery to direct, straight to the point images, and she often focused her criticism towards gender problems; She was a pioneering feminist. To make these abstract images, she used cuts from popular magazines and fashion publications to create moving and controversial pieces on society. I definitely think that her work is abstract. Her images gives of a weird vibe to it, as if something is wrong, but at the same time it is quite funny and humorous. As a lot of her work is done with portraits of people, it gives her the oppounity to really start playing with peoples perpectives. Because of the social movement that she was working within, playing with the faces of famous people gave off a laid back attitude. However, I don't doubt that she took her work very seriously and was a proud member of the movement. Personally, I don't particularly like the way her work looks. Since it's mainly of people's faces, it can come across as quite unsetteling and it makes me a bit uncomfortable. For example, the photo in the top left is one that really makes me feel a bit weird. The face is very close up and slightly disfigured, completed with pastel colours. I say this whilst considering the fact that she might have wanted someone to view the photo this way, and not think of it as a nice portrait. When talking about her work from this sort of perspective, I think it's very impressive that she managed to get this reaction.
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