This will be the first exhibition in her home city of Berlin for more than 15 years. Around 160 works drawn from all her creative periods will showcase the extraordinary variety of her artistic production, which always kept pace with the latest techniques of her time.
Höch was the only female member of the Berlin Dada group and collage became a particularly significant and genuine form of expression for her. Her important photomontages of the Dada period and the exceptional “From an Ethnographic Museum” series of the late 1920s are included as well as her pop art inspired works of the 1960s. Furthermore, the exhibition explores Höch’s work as a painter and shows key works of the Weimar period along with her lyrical post-war art, displaying her continuous search for new possibilities of expression.
The retrospective is divided into sections based on recurring themes and motives, with pieces from different periods juxtaposed to reveal astonishing cross-references within Höchs œuvre under headings such as “Female Representations – Male Myths”, “Construction and Expression” and “Poetry and Mysticism”.
A biographical strand is woven through the show to give the audience an intimate insight into the artist’s life via her correspondence, private photographs and personal writings. Books from her estate illuminate the intellectual roots of Hannah Höch’s thought and original exhibition catalogues document the special history of the reception of her work up to the end of her life.
The Berlinische Galerie’s extensive Höch collection and archival material will provide the majority of exhibited pieces. These will be specifically supplemented by loans from the Neue Nationalgalerie, the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, the collection of the Landesbank Berlin and various private collections.
The Friends of the Berlinische Galerie are providing substantial financial assistance for the organisation of the exhibition as well as for the production of the catalogue.