Hannah Höch and The Hall Fight

(Above) Hannah Höch: “Heads of State,” 1918–1920


(Above) Hannah Höch: “Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany,” 1919, 90 x 144 cm, Berlin


(Above) Hannah Höch: Dada Rundschau (Dada Review, 1919)


(Above) Hannah Höch: Das schöne Mädchen (The Beautiful Girl, 1919-1920)

(Above) Hannah Höch: Grotesque (1963)

(Above) Hannah Höch: Aus der Sammlung: Aus einem ethnographischen Museum (1929)

(Above) Hannah Höch: Half Caste (1919)


I CAN RECALL TWO THINGS ABOUT THE 8TH GRADE. THE FIRST THING WAS MAKING COLLAGES from magazines in the first art class I ever took and the second, was the fight between Ray Sloan and Jeff Lewter in the hall right after 1st period. Ray was feared by all. He was about 17 or 18 years old (in a class with 13 and 14 year old’s) because he had been held back so many times. Tall and mean, I am quite sure he is in prison today or was shot dead in a cheap motel standoff with police.

Jeff, on the other hand, was short, stocky and tough as nails (he went on to become a decorated Green Beret in Viet Nam). But on that day, which I bore witness to, Ray Sloan knocked out the future Green Beret with one punch. It was a swift and massive blow, and Jeff fell straight backwards like a felled oak. Sloan was suspended for like a month. Jeff was OK. But I digress. Where was I?

Magazine collages can be a great way to mix up photographic realities. As a kid, I was sticking big lips on photos of men with new eyes, bodies and backgrounds. And while I did not know it at the time, I was fooling around with an exercise in surrealism. I never forgot it.

Though I was an adult before I discovered the collages of Hannah Höch, I remember being impressed that they were not only amazing but created so long ago. And still today, Höch remains enigmatic to me and one of my favorite artists.

- - -Sewing- -Snapshots- -With- -Thread- - -

Click any image for larger view... you’ll definitely want to!



Click any image for larger view






Click any image for larger view





MANY OF YOU KNOW THAT I COLLECT SNAPSHOTS. I have seen snapshots that have been cut and glued to other surfaces, snapshots that have been painted and altered, transferred to other surfaces, and held pristine as objects—but never sewed on. My friend Robert Jackson, a collector of snapshots, told me about the work of Jane Deschner. Jane’s work is a powerful blend of word and image, and from my vantage point within this field, unique.

Learn more about Jane Deschner’s work here.

Artist Statement:
“For over twenty-five years, I have utilized found photographic images in my artmaking—found on magazine pages, they were the material of cut-and-paste photomontages. During graduate school, I became fascinated with vernacular photography, especially in its most ubiquitous (and human) form, the snapshot. Since 2001, I have collected, studied and altered early- to mid- twentieth century snapshots and studio portraits, press and movie photographs—worked to uncover what this rich repository can teach about our essential humanity. I’ve created over a dozen series, more than five hundred artworks. When we look at snapshots that are two, three and four generations old, what is immediately obvious is what has changed. But, when we look into them—we discover what has remained constant. We are reminded of how we are to one another.”

“I’m aging and my maternal side wants to pass on what I’ve learned. I want to moralize about accountability, acceptance, love, honesty, compassion, integrity, authenticity, gratitude and generosity. I appropriate and integrate the found photographs of strangers with the embroidered words of the famous.”

“Sewing binds photographs together; embroidery inscribes a quote. Stitching by hand into these photos both destroys and mends. I puncture and suture, wound and heal, simultaneously. It is an intimate activity, meditative and, sometimes, physically painful because of the tedium of the activity and the osteoarthritis in my thumb joints. I connect with generations before me.”

“Creating garments from stitched-together snapshots, “wearable-photo-albums,” is a recent direction. I craft a narrative in the snapshots I choose, sometimes enhanced by an embroidered quote or image. The garment is a metaphor for ways we identify ourselves, as we do in the photographs we choose to take. Our photos, our clothes—what we shed when we pass on.”

“We all snap photos of people and things we love and times we want to remember. In a studio, we hire a professional to immortalize us looking our best. When I alter a photograph’s original intent and appearance, the viewer is invited to deduce, speculate and fantasize. There are many ways to appreciate ourselves in the common photograph—even those of people, places and times we never knew.”