HANNAH HOCH - Cut with the Kitchen Knife, 1919

• Full title


  HANNAH HOCH - Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany 1919
• The “Kitchen Knife Dada”—a metaphor for Höch’s careful slicing and dicing—cuts a swath from lower right to upper left, separating Dada and “anti-dada” elements.
• The image of Kaiser Wilhelm II emerges, standing tall in his imperial finery, looming indignantly over the right half of the composition. Surrounded by disembodied heads and bodies, text fragments, bits of machinery, buildings, maps, and crowds, the Kaiser seems to fade into the background.
• Women dance, skate, and climb, while men stand at attention or are made to participate, unwittingly, in nonsensical and sometimes violent activities. This densely populated work is difficult, if not impossible, to take in all at once. Though complex, it is worth digging in here to understand the cast of characters and what they tell us about the work and the larger thematics of Berlin Dada.
• Cut with the Kitchen Knife is a photomontage, made by cutting photographs from mass media publications and pasting them onto a support to create new juxtapositions and new meanings.
• This cut-and-paste aesthetic was wholly embraced by Berlin Dada as a form of political and social critique. The new process allowed the group to comment on the newly established Weimar Republic.
• Hannah Höch


  Dada artist
• Hannah Höch's work


  • Reflects Dada sensibility
  • Reflects status as a "New Woman"
• The "New Woman" was a historical construct understood to be young, independent, often smartly dressed with a short bob hairstyle, eschewing home and family life in favor of joining the workforce
• Hannah Höch's work


  Relevant to Weimar culture and politics, and changing gender roles
• Hannah Höch's work "Cut with the Kitchen Knife"


  Mocks Weimar politicians but also celebrates women's victories
• Women's victories celebrated in "Cut with the Kitchen Knife"

  • Map at lower right indicates the countries where women had the right to vote, a right only recently ratified in Germany with the signing of the new constitution in 1918
  • Head of artist and activist Käthe Kollwitz, taken from a recent newspaper story, attests to her appointment as the first female professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts
• New Woman


  The subject of both praise and derision in Berlin's illustrated press in Weimar Germany
• New Woman's image


  • Appeared frequently in newspapers and magazines
  • Became fodder for Höch's photomontages
  • Celebrated new and expanding roles for women
• Well-known female figures


  • Käthe Kollwitz
  • Dancer Niddy Impekoven
  • Actress Asta Nielsen
• Well-known female figures


  Aligned with the Dada axis
• Dada axis


  • Word "dada" on the upper left
  • "die große welt dada" (the great Dada world) spelled out at lower right
• Der Dada


  • Expressed many of the Berlin Dadaist ideas
  • Included some of the earliest examples of members' use of collage
• Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, and George Grosz: '"Tretet dada bei" ("Join dada")'
• Der Dada no. 2, December 1919, edited by Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, and George Grosz
• Dada


  A new form of political propaganda in the medium of photomontage, embraced by the Berlin Dadaists
• Berlin was still reeling from the loss of WWI and the political turmoil and assassinations that followed
• The Berlin Dadaists were especially critical of the artistic and cultural traditions aligned with Wilhelmine Germany (the period of Kaiser Wilhelm II's rule from 1890 to 1918), which many perceived as the corrupt culture responsible for leading the world into war
• The Weimar Republic was founded

  1918
• The Weimar Republic was soon followed by the Spartacist uprising in early 1919, and the assassinations of Communist leaders Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg
• Drawing on images from the popular press, Berlin Dada mounted a bitter critique of Weimar politics and culture
• Political leaders featured in Cut with the Kitchen Knife

  • Kaiser Wilhelm II
  • Weimar Republic president Friedrich Ebert
  • General von Hindenburg
  • General Minister of Defense Gustav Noske