It was 1934; Hannah Hoch (originator of the photomontage and one of the greatest feminist artists) began her first romantic relationship with a femme, and the rise of Naziism commenced into power. Her compositions offered ideas of non-narrative sexuality, gender, and ethnic otherness to the prefabricated standards of popular media. But what vulnerabilities would Hannah Hoch write during this most creatively influential part of her life?
Journal Excerpts of Creative, Hannah Hoch.
March 6, 1934
It’s been barbaric ever since he was elected chancellor last year. Nazism has expanded, emerging as the most powerful political party in Germany. A male supremacist organization with ideology that women are only here to support their man, to breed, have dozens of children. The Mother’s Cross: six children, an award is given; Hitler becomes a godfather to the tenth. Was it mentioned that the name would be “Adolf” if it was male? Illogical one would certainly think it!
March 12, 1934
My forgiveness will never be offered after the state made Reichskulturkammer Law to order. Proclaims artists no pay, no exhibitions, no production. Creativity, a self-practice, no longer free.
To blur the boundaries that we self-certain beings are so unusually willing to delineate. What if I were to say that blurring those limits is possible? Be it small or large; it’s the viewpoint in which we judge that changes. I want to show the world today as an ant sees it and tomorrow as the moon sees it. I should hope to help the collective experience abundance, so they feel kinder to the world they already know. Alienating images to explore gender norms, connecting high-heeled legs with a stone torso and a mustachioed face, or uniting a pair of breasts with a tufted mask. My art is not a matter of escapism, rather an attack on society. “Degenerate imagery,” one male supremacist might say to another. I say, fear of alienation is to fear a revolution!
This all to tell: creating art was never about money. It’s a lie to say my exhibitions are not my sustenance. Not in a financial sense, rather a beat to my heart, my spirit. A lifeline it is!
March 1934
As artists flee the country, I find myself not wanting to leave it: Germany, my home. But having my Dessau Bauhaus show taken from me days before the opening, it’s hard to stay and show my creativity. It was to have included forty six of my photomontages and watercolors. How proud I am of Tamer and its sophisticated image of androgyny. How sad that it will have to wait to be seen.
April 9, 1934
I call a small cottage on the outskirts of Berlin my home. I was constantly being denounced in the city. In my little garden house it’s as if I disappeared completely, nobody knows me by sight or is aware of my Dada past.
I have now a safe place to work intimately on my art—a time of self-reflection. With the morning sun and birdsong’s serene spirit, I fall in love with embroidery again. It reminds me of my time at Ullstein Press, weaving my earliest collages.
April 23
DADA: the embodiment of the male parent, a patriarch. How dare those men to say it is to empower femininity. Dada was always a political movement to create consciousness within the state, make a mockery of war violence. Richter was the worst of them. All he saw my contribution to the movement as: the “quiet good girl from the little town of Gotha”…a “hostess” of studio evenings where I can manage to “conjure up buttered rolls plus beers and coffee.” The constant dismissal exhausted me to choose: complacency of the male patriarchy or freedom to practice self-expression…and I would never bow to the belittlement that came while keeping in touch with those boys.
May 5
It wasn’t easy for a woman to impose herself as a modern artist in Germany. They’ve always been against my work, impossible for me to present my art. Most of my counterparts were men – and their macho art reflects it. Exhausting seeing the propaganda posters plastered with same masucline models with phallic symbols that link to power and manhood.
The group constantly protested against my inclusion in the First International Dada Fair. Eventually, I was accepted. I was proud of myself, the resilience it took. They gave me the pet name “little Hanna” in the exhibition catalog. They altered my caption label, misspelling the “kitchen knife,” to the less menacing cake knife. I cut out and pasted the misspelled label adding even more nonsensical noise to my collage. It worked beautifully with the chaotic tornado of my proudest work, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife.
May 18, 1934
She is my muse, Til. The woman who encouraged me to deconstruct masculine and feminine identity. Her love makes me a better woman, a better artist. When photography is peculiar, it opens up a transcendental, fantastic realm for the creative human—a boundless mystic of territory. The approach must start without preconceptions, forget biases, and open to the beauty of fortuity. It is here that fantasy feels itself become extravagant.
May 22, 1934
I have become quite anxious. They found a hyperactive thyroid within me. Surgery must be done.
May 1934
A successful operation. I am grateful to feel the gift of today, of course I am.
August
Nightmarish. The illusion the military hierarchy has created is much too real. Do they know the isolation? Constantly fearing a visit from the Gestapo, is that what they want? As I lie here, almost dead. I see the ghost of Theo, his voice I hear. Maybe Germany isn’t my home. Dear friend oh I miss you. The brink of eternal unknowingness is where I lay. I am a creature struggling for life. This day leads me to retreat into fantasy, but bound as I am, a bridge. My imagery turned metaphysical, fiction is what I crave. My imagination is the hand, my familiar scissors discover the unknown.
August 1934
I have lost contact with the art world, they were never favorable to my work, so I wait here until it is safer for me to resurface.
1934
I’m an outlaw for the New Woman…Economic opportunity, legal rights, political participation – now that’s what I fight for!
I feel myself growing insecure…I am unstable I know it. What is it that’s making me weaker – medicine or the state of Germany? I hope this doesn’t last forever. Put a blank canvas and my collected images in front of me, there is more justice to be told for the woman.
August 29
Society failed me to progress. Or, perhaps it was me that failed society. If I could be a better artist over again I would, not for me, but for them. If I live from this, I will do differently with my privilege. A voice hard to ignore, a voice for those who have not one. Five thousand years of genetic inferiority, the definition of the respect to be received, ah well that depends on the color of your skin and genitalia between your legs.
