cut with a kitchen knife dada through the last weimar beer belly cultural epoch of germany (1919)
Hannah Höch Dada as a movement was inherently political in nature. Dada artists often used political satires to address the issues of the time. They attempted to push art to the limits of humanity and to convey the chaos in post-war (World War I, which did not yet have this title) Germany. "Many of Höch's overtly political photomontages caricatured the pretended socialism of the new republic and linked female liberation with leftist political revolution" (Lavin).[19] Perhaps Höch's most well known piece Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic symbolizes her cutting through the patriarchal society. The piece is a direct criticism of the failed attempt at democracy imposed by the Weimar Republic. Cut with the Kitchen Knife is "an explosive agglomeration of cut-up images, bang in the middle of the most well-known photograph of the seminal First International Dada Fair in 1920" (Hudson).[16] This photomontage is an excellent example of a piece that combines these three central themes in Höch's works: androgyny, the "New Woman" and political discourse. It combines images of political leaders with sports stars, mechanized images of the city, and Dada artists.
History of Germany during World War I The German population responded to the outbreak of war in 1914 with a complex mix of emotions, in a similar way to the populations in other countries of Europe; notions of overt enthusiasm known as the Spirit of 1914 have been challenged by more recent scholarship.[1] The German government, dominated by the Junkers, thought of the war as a way to end Germany's disputes with rivals France, Russia and Britain. The beginning of war was presented in Germany as the chance for the nation to secure "our place under the sun," as the Foreign Minister Bernhard von Bülow had put it, which was readily supported by prevalent nationalism among the public. The Kaiser and the German establishment hoped the war would unite the public behind the monarchy, and lessen the threat posed by the dramatic growth of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which had been the most vocal critic of the Kaiser in the Reichstag before the war. Despite its membership in the Second International, the Social Democratic Party of Germany ended its differences with the Imperial government and abandoned its principles of internationalism to support the war effort.