“It is no accident that Höch’s favorite medium is collage, which emerged through industrialization, urbanization, and the new mass media. Even at an advanced age, the artist drew sketches sitting in front of the TV set.”
In 1973, at the age of 84, Hannah Höch completed Life Portrait, a large format Dadaist collage-as-self-portrait, a visual history cum memoir incorporating images of her parents, Neil Armstrong, flowers from her garden, and over 20 images from her own extant work. Höch died five years later, but her was work was already anticipating the way we enlist technology to construct identity, address gender fluidity, and create our own interpersonal networks.
Hannah Hoch, Life Portrait, features an introductory essay by Alma-Elisa Kittner, along with text to accompany the 38 discrete sections of the collage.
Photograph by Liselotte Orgel-Köhne and Armin Orgel-Köhne the photographers who documented Hannah Höch’s exhibition at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste 1971, resulting in the collaboration that allowed Hannah Höch to produce Life Portrait.
Lit Hub Photography
Photography excerpts are curated by Catherine Talese and Rachel Cobb.
