Hannah Höch's 'Assembled Worlds' at Zentrum Paul Klee

The Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern presents 'Assembled Worlds', a comprehensive exhibition of Hannah Höch's photomontages. Featuring 60 works, the show traces Höch's career from her 1910 beginnings through her Dada involvement and post-war surrealist tendencies. The exhibition includes 11 films by Dziga Vertov, Man Ray, Viking Eggeling, and Re Soupalt across 15 thematic rooms. Höch, the only woman in the Berlin Dada movement, faced marginalization from male colleagues despite their progressive rhetoric. Her relationship with Raoul Hausmann ended in 1921; she later lived with Dutch writer Til Brugman from 1926, attracting criticism from avant-garde figures like Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters. Höch's collages, made from newspaper and magazine clippings from her work at Ullstein publishing house, critique media power, gender norms, and social ideals. Key works include 'The Father' (1920), 'Made for a Party' (1936), 'Money' (1919-25), 'Toughening up' (1925), 'Industrial Landscape' (1967), and 'Album' (1930). After WWII, nature dominated her work, inspired by her garden in Heiligensee. Her last major work, 'Life Portrait' (1975), is an autobiographical photomontage. The exhibition runs until February 25, 2024.