Hannah Höch: Millions and Millions of Views

World-famous and exhibited many times, but still largely unknown in her entire creative range: Hannah Höch. Celebrated as a Dada icon, her work is still attributed primarily to this art movement. Yet the oeuvre of this accomplished avant-garde artist is far more complex and multifaceted.

The exhibition Hannah Höch: Millions and millions of views takes a look at her impressive visual cosmos and shows the artist as a tireless explorer and inventor of artistic expression.

In 1912 Anna Therese Johanne Höch came to Berlin from the tranquil town of Gotha in Thuringia to study initially at the Charlottenburg School of Arts and Crafts, and then, starting in 1915, at the School of the Museum of Decorative Arts. From then on Höch moved through the avant-garde circles between Expressionism, Dadaism, Abstraction and Surrealism. She interweaves these impulses into a dynamic and enigmatic cosmos of imaginations. Craftsmanship allies itself with constructive concepts, surrealism with expressive handwriting – a coordinate field of variants and cross-connections emerges. Höch proves to be a competent exponent of avant-garde ideals, for her research revolves around perceptual phenomena and forms of thought, changes of perspective, space and its symbolic function, and the world from different viewpoints.

In 1918 Höch exhibited for the first time with the Berlin Dada, and from 1920 onward with the November Group. She had an intense friendship with Kurt Schwitters and main­tained contacts with the Dutch group De Stijl as well as with members of the Bauhaus. During the National Socialist era, Höch's art was considered “degenerate,” and she spent the war years primarily in her house in Berlin-Heiligensee. From the 1950s on, the artist participated in numerous national and international exhibitions, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The greatest attention has always been paid to her works from the Dada period and to her collages. The numerous paintings, drawings and watercolors, which make up the diversity of her work, have often gone unnoticed. Now the Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg is also focusing on this part of her oeuvre. According to Höch, the goal of art is to offer “millions and millions of views,” which she playfully juggles and illustrates in her work, thus locating her own position in the in-between. With over 100 works – including drawings, prints, collages and paintings – from all creative areas and periods, her work is presented in all its diversity.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Ellen Maurer Zilioli. A comprehensive catalog is published by Wienand Verlag.

In cooperation with Bröhan Museum, Berlin.

Events, digital content, guided tours and workshops at kulturspeicher.de.