Raoul Hausmann

Raoul Hausmann

Der Dada: A New Periodical
After Hausmann contributed to the first group show, held at Isaac Neumann's Gallery, April 1919, the first edition of Der Dada appeared in June 1919. Edited by Hausmann and Baader, after receiving permission from Tristan Tzara in Zurich to use the name, the magazine also featured significant contributions from Huelsenbeck. The periodical contained drawings, polemics, poems and satires, all typeset in a multiplicity of opposing fonts and signs.
At the beginning of 1920, Baader (President of All The World) Hausmann (the Dadasopher) and the 'World-Dada' Huelsenbeck undertook a six week tour of Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia, drawing large crowds and bemused reviews.^[11] The programme included primitivist verse, simultaneous poetry recitals by Baader and Hausmann, and Hausmann's Dada-Trot (Sixty-One Step) described as 'a truly splendid send-up of the most modern exotic-erotic social dances that have befallen us like a plague...'^[12]

The First International Dada Fair, 1920

Organised by Hausmann, Grosz and Heartfield, along with Max Ernst, the fair was to become the most famous of all Berlin Dada's exploits, featuring almost 200 works by artists including Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Ernst, Otto Dix & Rudolf Schlichter, as well as key works by Grosz, Höch and Hausmann. The work Tatlin At Home, 1920, can be clearly seen in one of the publicity photos taken by a professional photographer; the exhibition, whilst financially unsuccessful, gained prominent exposure in Amsterdam, Milan, Rome and Boston.^[13] The exhibition also proved to be one of the main influences on the content and layout of Entartete Kunst, the show of degenerate art put on by the Nazis in 1937, with key slogans such as 'Nehmen Sie DADA Ernst' (Take Dada seriously!) appearing in both exhibitions.

The Mechanical Head

The most famous work by Hausmann, Der Geist Unserer Zeit – Mechanischer Kopf (Mechanical Head [The Spirit of Our Age]), c. 1920, is the only surviving assemblage that Hausmann produced around 1919–20. Constructed from a Hairdresser's wig-making dummy, the piece has various measuring devices attached including a ruler, pocket watch mechanism, typewriter, camera segments and a crocodile wallet.^[14]

"Der Geist Unserer Zeit – Mechanischer Kopf specifically evokes the philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). For Hegel...everything is mind. Among Hegel's disciples and critics was Karl Marx. Hausmann's sculpture might be seen as an aggressively Marxist reversal of Hegel: this is a head whose "thoughts" are materially determined by objects literally fixed to it. However, there are deeper targets in western culture that give this modern masterpiece its force. Hausmann turns inside out the notion of the head as seat of reason, an assumption that lies behind the European fascination with the portrait. He reveals a head that is penetrated and governed by brute external forces." Jonathan Jones,^[15]