Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife

Hannah Höch (Germany; 1889 – 1978)
Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife (c.1919)
Staatliche Museum (Berlin, Germany)

Accompanying Song: And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda by Eric Bogle











The chaos and disorder within this photomontage embodies the dogma of the Dada. Dadaism was a cultural movement that developed after the peak of World War I and concentrated on anti-war politics. Believing that it was "reason" that motivated war efforts, the movement employed a rejection of current art standards ("Dada"). The anti-bourgeois sentiment is evident in Höch's depiction of the Kaiser and other political leaders in chorus girl costumes and a background of exploding machine parts (DiLascia). The photomontage satirizes the capitalists and their machinery, displaying that such capitalist greed and logical methods cause destruction. Höch intentionally creates disorder and avoids aesthetics in order to reject the societal norms. Such avoidance of order voices her dissent from bourgeois "reason" and "logic".