The itinerant exhibition of artworks produced by Hannah Höch (1889 - 1978) was organized by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IfA) [Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations] (Stuttgart, Germany) in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon. This exhibition was part of the programme under the auspices of the IfA and aimed to “show the 20th century German Art abroad from a very specific perspective of the History of Art in connection with significant artists” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 7). Two other exhibitions held under this programme had already been presented at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG): Artes Gráficas e Design na República Federal da Alemanha [Graphic Art and Design in the Federal Republic of Germany] (1978) and Max Ernst: Livros e Obra Gráfica [Max Ernst: Books and Graphic Artworks] (1987).

As the title indicates, this exhibition focused on the collages made by the German artist, a technique for which she became recognized in her own country and abroad. In addition to the selected collages, nine panels with photos were presented showing her artistic development through reproductions of her first collages, photos of her circle of friends, groups she participated in, exhibitions in which her works were presented and some of the journeys she made.

According to Eberhard Roters, Höch’s complete work remained at the time “(…) virtually unknown to the general public, and knowledge and ideas about the artist are generally quite limited” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 8). The first major exhibition aimed at contributing to a more comprehensive new look at Hannah Höch’s work was Hannah Höch: Fotomontagen, Gemälde, Aquarelle [Hannah Höch: photomontages, paintings, watercolours] presented in 1980 at the Kunsthalle Tübingen. Based on this event, on its photomontages section specifically, a smaller exhibition was planned to show to the foreign public a selection of collages, including other periods of the artist’s work, in addition to those of the Dadaist period.

Her first experiences in collages included Staatshäupter [Heads of State], a composition full of irony dating back to 1918-20, in which the artist made use of a photograph published in the Berliner Illustriert Zeitung which displayed Friedrich Ebert, the first president of Germany, and Gustav Noske, Minister of Defence, bathing in the Baltic Sea after a state visit. This image had already generated a great controversy, but Höch ridiculed the situation even more by putting clipped figures of Ebert and Noske in bathing suits on a background with children’s illustrations.  

The artist’s strong irony and sarcasm remained in other collages, such as Die Kökette I [The Coquette I], (1923-25), Mischling [Half-Caste] (1924), Equilibre [Balance] (1925), Kinder [Children] (1925), among others. They reveal how Höch “(...) liked to speak through innuendo and to encode contents” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 92). Observing these works, Peter Krieger states: “As if through a secret alchemy, even in the midst of controversial turmoil, she was able to create through combinations full of spirit – new worlds of forms and senses from very banal reproductions” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 88).

As the selected collages show, Hannah Höch worked, over her artistic pathway, on new subjects and experimented different materials and relations between the cropped images. If in the first collages the clippings stand out from the more or less flat background, the latter is gaining another impact until it merges itself with the shapes.

The subjects chosen by the artist were strongly related to the times and to the places inhabited by her. That explains the option of including documental panels, which accompanied the exhibited works. For example, hardness and survival in the industrial city are represented in A obra (1930) and in Indische Tanzerin ([Indian Dancer], (1928), the war and the attempt to forget fear for a moment are implicit in Nur nicht mit beiden Beinen aufder Erde stehen ([Never Keep Both Feet on the Ground] (1940).  On the other hand, some surrealistic environments in her works of the 1940s, such as Traumnacht ([Dream Night] (1943-46) and Lichtsegel ([Light Sails], (1943-46) relate to her move to Heiligensee, where the house and the garden became her main refuge. 

Since the mid-1950s, elements from magazines and advertising brochures with intensive and bright colours become part of the collages. In Grotesk ([Grotesque], (1963), Hommage a Riza Abasi ([Homage to Riza Abasi], (1963), Das Fest kann beginnen ([On with the Party], (1965) and Fremde Schonheit II ([Strange Beauty II], (1966) we can see the intersection of the pop art’s lightness with the dream, the absurd, the irony, the unexpected and the teasing that comes from the Dadaism and the surrealism. Of the same period, an abstract Komposition in Grau [Composition in Gray], (1965) was also exhibited.

Through the diversity of the selected collages, this exhibition sought to show Hannah Höch as an artist who “(...) never set herself in just one direction but as someone who used all the possibilities provided by the diversity of styles at her disposal, mixing them as she needed.” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 66). The artist herself stated: “(...) it is more important for me to develop my way of life and work more and more broadly, modifying and enriching it, even though this endless evolution has made it impossible for me to succeed easily.” (Hannah Höch. 1889-1978. Colagens, 1989, p. 66)

A catalogue, which included texts written by Götz Adriani, Eberhard Roters and Peter Krieger for the Hannah Höch retrospective exhibition: Fotomontage, Gemälde, Aquarelle (Kunsthalle Tübinge, 1980), was published for this exhibition.

After being presented in Lisbon, the exhibition was part of the Serralves Foundation’s program, in Oporto, from March 2 to April 22, 1990.