dada
Africa
18.3. –17.7.2016
e
Exhibition texts
da da
Africa
Dialogue with
the Other
Dada Afrika will be the first ever exhibition devoted specifically to
the Dadaist reception of art and culture from Africa, America, Asia
and Oceania. Like the Expressionists and Cubists, the Dadaists
were interested in deploying formal elements from non-European art to develop a new visual language. However, they went one
step further and sought to use foreign cultures as a vehicle for
their own social and political protest against Western civilisation.
Their riotous cabaret evenings staged in Zurich featured poetry, drumming and mask dances as expressions of
protest against the murderous machinery of the First World
War, while their grotesque assemblages and abstractions
were designed to subvert the bourgeois norms and values they
despised. The first exhibition placing African sculptures on a par
with Dadaist art was held in the gallery owned by Han Coray.
The picture the Dadaists drew of the culturally other was
derived from travel reports, colonial newspapers and ethnological museums. Yet Western stereotypes of this world had very little to do with life as it was really lived in far-off countries. Dadaist
artists discovered in the exotic quality of the foreign a liberating
alternative world with which they sought to renew their own societies and create a new kind of art.
The first of the four sections of the exhibition, Dada
Performance, brings to life the Dadaists’ exploration of foreign
cultures through performance. Dada Gallery focuses on how the
avant-garde and the African art market influenced one another.
Dada Magic uses the collages by Hannah Höch to illustrate how
the Dadaists combined foreign art with their own to create a new
visual language. Dada Controversy — on the passage to the museum’s permanent Africa exhibition — contrasts the Western view
of African art with the post-colonial position of the artist Senam
Okudzeto.
d ad a Intro
Texts for the exhibition Dada Africa – Dialogue with the Other in
the Museum Rietberg Zurich, 18.3. –17.7.2016
1
Unknown artist
Hemba figure
Early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 105, Han Coray Collection
This Hemba figure was part of the African collection owned by
Han Coray (1880 –1974) and stood in his villa as a “monument to
African art”. The Dada exhibition held in his gallery presented
the first-ever dialogue between modern art and African art. Han
Coray is therefore regarded as having assisted the “birth of Dada”.
Museum Rietberg has one of the most significant holdings of the
collector’s African pieces.
2
Cat. 4.13
John Heartfield and Rudolf Schlichter
Prussian Archangel
1920, reconstruction by Isabel Kork and
Michael Sellmann, papier-mâché on wire frame
Berlinische Galerie, BG-O 7084/93, purchased with
project funding from the Department of Cultural
Affairs, Berlin 1988
The assemblage Prussian Archangel is a vicious caricature of the
militarism of the First World War and the Weimar Republic. The
display window mannequin is wearing a field-grey soldier’s
uniform and its right hand has been replaced by a bayonet-like
prosthesis. The grotesque pig’s snout reveals the true nature of
the times.
3
Cat. 4.12
George Grosz and John Heartfield
The Bourgeois Philistine Heartfield Gone Wild
(Electro-Mechanical Tatlin Plastic)
1920, reconstruction by Michael Sellmann 1988, tailor’s
dummy, revolver, bell, knife and fork, “C”, “27”, false
teeth, schwarzer Adlerorden (Order of the Black Eagle),
EK II, Osram lightbulb
Berlinische Galerie, BG-O 7083/93, purchased with project funding from the Department of Cultural Affairs,
Berlin 1988
The purpose of this one-legged tailor’s dummy was to condemn
the carnage of the First World War. The war cripple is composed
of an array of found objects, absurd prostheses and a light as head
which can be switched on or off as required. The Dadaists used
montages like this to oppose the bourgeois understanding of
what art is – and what it is not.
4
Cat. 1.1
Raoul Hausmann
Hannah Höch with Hat (I)
1915, Berlin, drawing
Private collection Berlin, Courtesy Grisebach GmbH
5
Cat. 1.11
Raoul Hausmann
Draft letter to Oskar Moll with the pen-and-ink
drawing “Mask”
1915, Berlin, paper, handwritten, pen-and-ink drawing
Berlinische Galerie, BG-HHC K 4525/79, purchased with
funding from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Berlin
1979
6
d ad a Intro
Cat. 1.10
Unknown artist
Mask
Late 19th century, Tanzania, Makonde, wood
Erich-Heckel-Nachlass
Both drawings epitomise the pre-Dada period of the Berlin artist Raoul Hausmann, who turned to Dadaism a short time later.
Just as the Expressionists and Cubists had adopted a formal and
aesthetic primitivism, Hausmann’s drawings were inspired by a
Makonde mask which belonged to his fellow painter Erich Heckel. The mask had been given to Heckel by his brother, who had
brought it back from East Africa.
Foreign cultures formed the basis for the multi-media
performances at the Dadaists’ so-called “Soirées nègres”,
which used pseudo-African sound-poems, drumming and
mask dances as a form of provocation and innovation. The
tumultuous performances were intended to shock and
alienate audiences and, by referencing alien worlds, also
sought to test the performers’ own physical and mental
limits and to release emotional and irrational forces. The
Dadaists used the culturally other to conjure up what
they took for a primeval state of consciousness, in which
humankind and cosmos became one and art and reality
could no longer be distinguished from each other.
Like Picasso, Kirchner and Nolde, Dada artists such
as Marcel Janco, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Hugo Ball and Hans
Arp took a keen interest in the cultural others. Borrowing
from artefacts from Africa and Oceania, the Dadaists created works out of new materials, not previously used for art,
while in the field of literature, writers like Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara were inspired by texts
from Africa and Australia to experiment with language.
However, the Dadaists did not merely copy or adapt exotic
elements. Their intention was rather to break the boundaries of their own art and language and inspired by foreign
cultures to develop a new visual and formal vocabulary.
d ad a Performance
dada
Performance
7
Cat. 2.2
Unknown artist
Male figure, lefem
Early 20th century, Bangwa region, Cameroon grassfields,
wood
Völkerkundemuseum Zürich, 10084, Han Coray Collection
d ad a Performance
This wooden statue is an idealised portrait of a chief of the Bangwa region in the Cameroon grassfields. The sculpture was produced while the dignitary was still alive and served as a memorial to him after his death. The vivid and emotional expression
of Cameroonian carvings also appealed greatly to artists such as
Marcel Janco.
8
Cat. 2.3
Marcel Janco
Design for a Dada poster advertising “Le Chant
Nègre” event on 31 March 1916
Charcoal, smeared on thin sketching paper, mounted on
thin vellum and card
Kunsthaus Zürich, Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde,
Z.Inv.1980/42
Romanian-born Dada artist Marcel Janco (1895 –1984) clearly
based this design for a poster on African masks or sculptures. The
dynamic movement and aggressive mimicry of the figures create
an expressive atmosphere indicating unbridled vitality – an effect that the Dadaist soirées also strove to achieve.
9
Unknown photographer
Hugo Ball: “Verse without Words in
Cubist costume”
1916, Zurich, photographic reproduction
Kunsthaus Zürich, Dada Collection, VI:5
The appearance of Hugo Ball (1886 –1927) as the “magic bishop” is
acknowledged as the moment sound poetry was born. His “Cubist
costume” complete with scissor hands and “shaman’s hat” was
as astonishing as his delivery: chanting the African rhythms of
his poem “Karawane” – “Jolifanto bambla ô falli bambla” – he
seemingly fell into a trance and had to be carried from the stage.
10
Cat. 2.9
Unknown photographer
Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Dance in “Cubist” costume
1916/17?, Zurich, photographic reproduction
Fondation Arp, Clamart
This photograph is the only authentic image of a Dadaist mask
along with a costume. The figure, probably Sophie Taeuber-Arp,
is wearing an oversized geometric Cubist mask with grotesque
facial features. The arching pose of the body and the raised arms
testify to performance and dance as essential aspects of Dada
soirées.
11
Cat. 2.16
Marcel Janco
Jazz 333
1918, oil on card
Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne,
Paris, AM 4264 P
12
Cat. 2.15
Unknown artist
Beaked mask
19th/early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Dan region, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 423, Paul Guillaume,
Han Coray Collection
d ad a Performance
The mask-like face and bony limbs of the musician in Marcel
Janco’s Jazz 333 were intended to convey the supposed primitivism of the new musical style’s rhythms and sounds. The lines are
likewise jagged and the paint has been generously applied. The
African-inspired noise orgies of the Dada soirées served primarily
to channel instinctive, irrational forces.
13
Cat. 2.5
Unknown artist
Grotesque face with a malicious grin
First half of 20th century, Switzerland, Lötschental,
wood, painted, fur, animal teeth
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RSz 2, before 1937/38 probably
Max Wydler, Zurich; subsequently Eduard von der Heydt,
gift of Eduard von der Heydt
Even if no direct relationship can be established between the
mask from the Lötschental Valley and that created by Janco, they
are certainly linked by what they stand for: taking flight from
an “over-civilisation” perceived to be restrictive. While Dadaists
were turning bourgeois norms upside down, ethnologists viewed
the Fasnacht carnival masks as wild and alien. Both scholars and
artists discovered a liberating alternative universe in the exotic
“other”.
14
Cat. 2.4
Marcel Janco
Mask
1919, assemblage with paper, card, corrugated board,
cord, gouache and pastel
Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris, AM 1221 OA, gift of Marcel Janco 1967
Although the Dada masks were often described as “African”, in
terms of materials and style they were more closely associated
with masks from Oceania, which were made of perishable
natural materials. In Marcel Janco’s case, however, the folk art
of his own culture played a key role in his work. Parallels can be
found with masked processions from Janco’s native Romania or
Swiss Fasnacht carnival masks.
15
Cat. 2.7
Yasutaka
Hannya mask
Edo period, late 18th century, Japan, Ôno-shi,
Fukui prefecture, wood with painted frame
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RJP 4046, gift of the SwissJapanese Society
This Japanese Noh theatre mask represents the spirit of a woman
consumed with anger or obsessions, who returns to life to exact
revenge.The horns symbolise jealousy, while the gold paint of the
eyes and teeth refers to supernatural power. In 1927, Hugo Ball
said that the Dada masks evoked “Japanese or ancient Greek theatre, yet they were completely modern”.
16
Cat. 2.6
Marcel Janco
Mask
1919, assemblage with paper, card, wood wool, gouache,
pastel and glue
Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris, AM 1220 OA, gift of Marcel Janco 1967
d ad a Performance
Masks, along with sound poetry, music and dance, were an important element of the Dadaist soirées in Zurich. Hugo Ball recalled that the first appearance of a mask “dictated a very particular impassioned gesture which bordered on madness” (Hugo
Ball, 1927). The seemingly magical effect of the masks in Dada
performances emulated the way masks were used in African or
Oceanic cultures.
17
Card advertising Panopticum
1900, Zurich, paper
Rea Brändle Collection
Postcard advertising Dahomey troupe
1902, large group on Swiss tour in 1898, paper
Rea Brändle Collection
Postcard advertising Malabaren troupe
promoted by the Hagenbeck brothers
1901, performance in Sihlhölzi, paper
Rea Brändle Collection
The general public came face to face with foreign cultures in
public exhibitions of humans called Völkerschauen, which in Switzerland as elsewhere continued well into the twentieth century.
In Zurich’s Sihlhölzli or Panopticum venues the audience could
satisfy their voyeuristic curiosity about the exotic by watching
Malabaren acrobats or the bodyguards of the King of Dahomey.
Putting these supposedly “wild beings” on show based on racism
and evolutionism. The audience learned nothing about the complex societies they came from.
18
The foreign in (popular) science books
Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach, 1912; Gustav Adolf
Ritter, Die Völker der Erde. Afrika, 1904
Books provided one way of satisfying people’s thirst for the foreign,
at least to a certain degree. In addition to Karl May’s adventure
stories or encyclopaedias, scholarly travel writing and monographs – such as those by Leo Frobenius, an ethnologist specialising in Africa, or Carl Strehlow, a missionary and linguist in Australia – were also popular. Dadaists like Tristan Tzara explored
these sources extensively.
19
Cat. 2.8
Alphonso Lisk-Carew and Niels W. Holm
Postcards from West Africa
Early 20th century, Sierra Leone and Nigeria
Postcard published by Lisk-Carew Brothers and
Photoholm, printed in England and Germany
The large numbers of postcards from Africa which circulated
around Europe in the early twentieth century did much to shape
popular notions of the continent. The way these cards were
produced illustrates the entangled historical between Europe and
Africa: Alphonso Lisk-Carew did a lively trade in postcards from
Sierra Leone. He sent the photos to a printer in England, where
the image was printed onto a postcard and a caption added.
20
Unknown photographer
Display of artefacts from Oceania
c. 1920, Sammlung für Völkerkunde Zürich,
photographic reproduction
Archive of the Völkerkundemuseum der Universität
Zürich
Unknown photographer
The old and new look of the Berlin Benin Collection
d ad a Performance
Before and after 1926, Königliches Museum für
Völkerkunde Berlin, photographic reproductions
Archive of the Ethnologisches Museum – Staatliche
­Museen zu Berlin
The ethnological museums commissioned colonial officials, missionaries and explorers to collect huge quantities of ethnographic
objects. Yet during the 1920s, prompted by the avant-garde movement, museums started to consider these objects in terms of their
artistic value rather than purely as ethnographic specimens. Accordingly, ethnological museums reduced the number of exhibits
and presented them more attractively.
21
Unknown artist
Boxing match between Arthur Cravan and
Jack Johnson in Barcelona bullfighting arena
23 April 1916, poster reproduction
In 1916, the Dada forerunner and dandy Arthur Cravan challenged
the African-American boxing champion Jack Johnson to a fight
in a bullfighting arena in Barcelona. The two were already friends,
and both outsiders in their own societies. This served as a highly
physical demonstration of fraternisation between “negro” and
“bianco”, between “wild” and “civilised”. The boxing match is recognised as the first subversive “happening” in the history of art.
22
Cabaret Voltaire: a collection of artistic and
literary contributions
1916, published by Hugo Ball, Zurich: Meierei,
Spiegelgasse 1, City archive Zurich
The publication Cabaret Voltaire from summer 1916 is a collection
of key texts by international writers which were read and recited
during Dada soirées. Some of the works of art displayed here were
exhibited in Cabaret Voltaire. The publication contains the first
documented use of the word DADA, by Hugo Ball.
23
Programme for the “Große Soirée” on 31 Mai 1916
1916, Meierei, Zurich, reproduction of an advert published in the previous day’s Zürcher Post
The Dadaist soirées were a blend of song, dance and recitation
from a potpourri of genres. The “Große Soirée” in May 1916 contained Russian songs, a bruitistic nativity play and a masked
dance based on themes from Sudan. At that time the term Sudan
denoted sub-Saharan West Africa, and the Dadaists used it to signify “foreign” and “wild” cultures.
24
Programme of the “authors’ evening”
on 14 July 1916
1916, Zunfthaus zur Waag, Zurich
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, V:8
The programme advertising “Music. Dance. Theory. Manifestos.
Images. Costumes. Masks. Verse” hints at the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of the evening. The event also included “Chants
nègres” and masked dances. The Dadaists’ performances not only
showed contempt for Art with a capital A, but also questioned
their own ethical standards. They saw a liberating alternative setting in the culturally “other”.
25
Cat. 2.10
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Replica of a katsina costume
1925 (?) (replica by Ina von Woyski, 2015),
assorted fabrics and felt
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, D S 1903
26
Cat. 2.1
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Design for a katsina costume (no. 60)
c. 1922, gouache and coloured pencil on paper
Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, LS 320
d ad a Performance
27
Unknown photographer
Erika Schlegel and Sophie Taeuber-Arp in
katsina costumes
1925, photographic reproduction
Archiv Fondation Arp, Clamart
Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 –1943) made this costume inspired by
katsina figures of the Hopi. Based on a draft design which was
accurate in every detail, the artist created a colourful costume
using her abstract geometrical formal vocabulary. She was motivated by a desire to produce artistic designs for everyday objects
free from the limitations of genre or geography.
28
2.11
Unknown artist
Mountain sheep katsina (pangwu)
c. 1900, katsina, Hopi, poplar wood, horns, sprouted
seeds, feathers, fur, woollen thread
North American Native Museum (NONAM) Zurich,
DA 365, Gottfried Hotz Collection; previously Northern
Arizona Museum, Flagstaff, Percival Collection
Katsina figures are depictions of masked dancers from the Hopi
Native American tribe. The dancers embody ancestral spirits who
function as rainmakers and as intermediaries between humans
and divine beings. Katsina figures were not regarded as sacred
and were consequently produced for the art market at an early
stage. Since the late nineteenth century, artists have also been
avid collectors of katsina.
29
Cat. 2.13
Unknown artist
Bead bag
1880 –1910, Lesotho, Drakensberg, South Africa, glass
beads, animal sinew
François and Claire Mottas Collection, collected by Leng
30
Cat. 2.18
Unknown artist
Bead necklace umgingqo
1880 –1910, South Africa, Eastern Cape, glass beads,
animal sinew, brass button, textiles
François and Claire Mottas Collection, collected by Leng
31
Cat. 2.19
Unknown artist
Bead belt, umumba/umutsha/umbhijo
1880 –1910, South Africa, Drakensberg, Zulu or Sotho region, plant fibres, animal sinew, skin, glass beads, brass
button
François and Claire Mottas Collection
In southern Africa bead art gave women an opportunity to express themselves through design. Chains, belts and bags adorned
with beads were used decoratively by women and men. The patterns and colours revealed the wearer’s social status, ethnic identity and age group. Glass beads imported from Europe were long
reserved for members of the elite, until bead art became more
democratic in the late nineteenth century.
32
Cat. 2.12
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Bourse, formes géométriques
1918, silk yarn, silk, woven glass beads
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste; Museum für Gestaltung, Arts and Crafts Collection, KGS 07659
33
Cat. 2.17
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Necklace
c.1918 –1920, beads, threaded, loop technique
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, D S1915, long-term loan
from a private collection
34
d ad a Performance
Cat. 2.20
Unknown artist
Bead pouch, Pompadour
c. 1900, Switzerland, artificial silk, beads, yarn
Private collection
Beading formed an important part of Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s oeuvre
until the early 1920s. Her style typically contained geometric and
abstract figurative forms, but the works were equally reminiscent of South African and folkloristic bead art. Taeuber-Arp was a
versatile artist who espoused Dadaist calls for an anti-elitist art
and hence treated applied and fine art from various cultures as
equivalent.
35
Cat. 2.21
Unknown artist
Relic box
19th/early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Azande, wood, bark, raffia
Museum Rietberg Zürich, Han Coray Collection
36
Cat. 2.22
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Powder compact
c. 1918, wood, turned and painted
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, long-term loan from a
private collection
This wooden powder compact belongs to the oeuvre of the highly
versatile Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Although designed by the artist herself, the shape, material and function recall African containers,
like this Azande relic box. The family of the artist’s husband Hans
Arp have recounted how Sophie Taeuber-Arp used African vessels
as inspiration for similar sculptures.
37
Cat. 2.23
Raoul Hausmann
OFFEAH
1918, poster poem, print on orange paper
Berlinische Galerie, BG-G 7224/93, purchased with
budgetary funding from the Department of Cultural
Affairs Berlin 1992
The sound poetry Raoul Hausmann (1886 –1971) composed between 1918 and 1920 seems to adhere neither to the paradigm of
the Zurich Dadaists’ “Poème nègre” nor to the urban poetry of
Berlin Dada. In contrast to the other Dada sound poets, Hausmann
was interested in non-verbal poetry, investigating its experimental potential in both visual – as in this poster – and phonetic form.
38
Audio station for sound poetry
Hugo Ball, “Caravane”, 1916 (from Almanach Dada,
sur mandat du Bureau central du mouvement Dada
allemand, ed. Richard Huelsenbeck, Berlin 1920, p. 53.)
Richard Huelsenbeck, “Die Ebene”, Zurich 1916 ; in :
Dada Zürich. Texte, Manifeste, Dokumente, ed. Karl Riha,
Stuttgart 2010, p. 75–77
d ad a Performance
Raoul Hausmann, “bbbb” (from Mecáno No. 2, published
by I. K. Bonset (Theo van Doesburg), Leiden 1922)
Dadaist sound poetry was concerned with deconstructing language constrained by rules and grammar and gaining “authentic”
linguistic material. Hugo Ball evoked primitivist “Thèmes Nègres”
with his sounds, while Richard Huelsenbeck idolised drum
rhythms and Raoul Hausmann broke language down into consonants. In a bid to create radical new sound paintings, the Dadaists
were no longer concerned with sense or comprehensibility.
39
Cat. 2.14
Unknown artist
Drum
19th/early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo,
probably Songye region, wood, leather
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 325, Han Coray Collection
The Dadaist “Soirées Nègres” were a sensually powerful combination of poetry, dance, masks and music. After Richard Huelsenbeck (1892–1974) had joined the Zurich Dadaists from Berlin,
the “negro rhythm” was further intensified. Inspired by African
drum music and pseudo-African “umba, umba” chants, the Dada
activists sought to drum European music and literature “into the
ground”.
40
Audio station with four musical excerpts
James Reese Europe “On Patrol in No Man’s Land” 1919
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes “Pas de la chicorée frisée”
1920, © LTM Publishing Ltd
“Song from Kalewu” and “Drum music”, Wax cylinder
recording in Togo, Ewe, recorded by Julius Smend 1905,
Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, Ethnologisches Museum
– Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Smend Togo I, Walze A;
Smend Togo II, Walze 8)
The music of the Dada years was influenced by African and
African-American musical traditions. Ethnologists brought
recordings of non-European languages and music to Europe,
which were then made available to the public as records.
Although early jazz was carefully composed, the general public heard it as uncultivated noise. In the piece by James
Reese Europe the bomb blasts evoke rhythmic drumming. The
dissonant piano composition by Ribemont-Dessaignes consisted
of randomly arranged notes and caused a scandal at its premiere.
d ad a Gallery
dada
Gallery
The first exhibitions of Dada art were held in the gallery run by
the Zurich art dealer and educational reformer Han Coray. This
gallery, located on Paradeplatz, became the centre of their activity
following the closure of Cabaret Voltaire in Niederdorf. The focus
shifted from the performative elements of the soirées to art exhibitions and talks.
In 1917, the Galerie Corray hosted the first exhibition in
Switzerland to present Dadaist works in dialogue with African
art. Alongside the multi-talented Tristan Tzara, who became the
mouthpiece for this international movement following Hugo
Ball’s retreat from the strident and noisy Dada, the Paris-based
art dealer Paul Guillaume also played an important role in this
exhibition by providing the African pieces.
Dada marked the birth of private collections of art from
Africa, and in the 1920s, Han Coray became one of the most important Swiss collectors of African art. Museum Rietberg still houses 250 unique objects from his enormous collection. Like Coray,
Tristan Tzara developed an obsessive passion for collecting art
from Africa and Oceania and used this alongside non-European
literature for his “Poèmes nègres”.
The reciprocal influence of the avant-garde and the
African art market is also reflected in the medium of photography.
Man Ray, who came to Paris from New York in 1921, used the artefacts procured by Paul Guillaume as a basis for his own art. Both
Man Ray’s own works and the photographed African sculptures
became icons of art history.
41
Cat. 3.9
Marcel Janco
1re Exposition Dada: Cubistes, Art nègre, Galerie
Corray
1917, exhibition poster, paper, printed
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, V:48 / B 51 B 1
The poster for the first Dada exhibition in Han Coray’s gallery,
named Galerie Corray, was designed by Marcel Janco. The advertisement for Cubist and African art and Tristan Tzara’s lectures
was framed in an endless row of letters reading DADADADA. Han
Coray was the Dadaists’ gallerist only for a short period, but his
input was essential in developing the Dadaist notion of the gallery.
42
Cat. 3.1
Unknown artist
Male figure
Late 19th/early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Baule region,
wood
Private collection, Paul Guillaume, Leon Bachelier
Collection
Parisian art dealer Paul Guillaume, who was in contact with
Tristan Tzara, sent this wooden sculpture to Han Coray’s gallery
in 1917 for the first Dada exhibition. It was the first time in
Switzerland that European and non-European artefacts had been
juxtaposed as equals. In the following years, both Han Coray and
Tristan Tzara began collecting African art.
43
Cat. 3.2
Hans Arp
Crucifixion
c. 1914
Oil on canvas
Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth, 001.611
Hans Arp’s (1886 –1966) quest for a renewal of art led him to experiment with textiles. Weaving and embroidery using wool replaced
the easel painting he despised as bourgeois. Diagonally arranged
geometric shapes dominate the centre of the picture here. This
oil painting served as a model for what Arp considered to be the
much more important tapestry, which hung in Cabaret Voltaire
in 1916 and featured in the first Dada exhibition in 1917. Alongside
black and beige, the use of red lends the composition an emotionally charged element.
44
d ad a Gallery
Cat. 3.3
Hans Arp
Bird mask
1918, wood
Stiftung Arp e. V., Berlin /Rolandswerth, 002.491
This relief is a radical new three-dimensional design illustrating Hans Arp’s pursuit of new artistic forms of expression, which
are also found in his collages and textile works. The bird mask
is neither representational nor abstract. Eyes and a beak can be
discerned in the amorphous, geometrical form, comparable with
a flexible mask that can be slipped onto a face.
45
Cat. 3.4
Circle of the Master of Yasua
Mask
Late 19th/early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Guro region,
wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 506, Paul Guillaume,
Carel Van Lier, Han Coray, Kunstgewerbemuseum der
Stadt Zürich
The symmetry of this mask is emphasised by the erect ears and
geometrical hairstyle. The facial scars frame the narrow nose,
finely contoured eyes and pointed teeth. Paul Guillaume sold it
to Carel van Lier, an avant-garde art dealer in Amsterdam who
exhibited his collection in the city’s Stedelijk Museum in 1927. It
was one of the earliest exhibitions of non-European art in an art
museum.
46
Cat. 3.14
Master of Gohitafla
Female figure
c. 1900, Ivory Coast, Guro region, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 309, Han Coray Collection
According to Emmy Hennings, an African sculpture of a “lovely negro woman” stood in an exhibition at Galerie Dada in 1917.
While “the foreign” made only a fleeting appearance at the
tumultuous cabaret evenings, in Galerie Dada there was a tangible
interaction between artefacts from Africa and the most recent
works of various artistic movements – Sturm, Cubism, Futurism
and Dada.
47
Cat. 3.10
Unknown artist
Knife with ivory handle
19th/early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Mangbetu region, iron, ivory
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 19, Han Coray Collection
48
Hans Arp
As a Consequence of a Collage
1914
Wool
Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth, 003.708
49
Cat. 3.11
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Abstract motif (masks)
1917, gouache on paper
Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth, 003.551
50
Cat. 3.18
Unknown artist
Ancestor statue
19th century, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bembe
region, wood
Völkerkundemuseum Universität Zürich, 10153,
Han Coray Collection
51
Cat. 3.19
Unknown artist
Male figure for the ekoho society
d ad a Gallery
19th/early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ndengese region, wood, polychrome
Völkerkundemuseum Universität Zürich, 10151,
Han Coray Collection
52
Unknown photographer
View into Villa Haldengut, owned by Han Coray
1920s, Erlenbach, photographic reproduction
Pieter Coray Collection
These two figures from Congo once stood on the mantelpiece in
Han Coray’s villa. In his “museum of all peoples and eras”, old furniture and tapestries, paintings and sculptures from the Western
world mingled with pieces from his extensive African collection.
The seated figures in these memorial statues exude tremendous
dignity and calm. The ornamentation recalls proverbs and songs
of praise.
53
Cat. 3.12
Hans Richter
Portrait of Han Coray
1916, brushwork on black on tracing paper
Kunsthaus Zürich, Graphic Collection, Z.Inv.1992/0034
Han Coray always maintained close contact to artists, supporting them by providing accommodation and studios, purchasing their pictures and exhibiting their works in his gallery. It is
thus no coincidence that one of Hans Richter’s many portraits
depicts Coray.
54
Han Coray: Neulandfahrten. Ein Buch für Eltern,
Lehrer, Kinder
1912, Leipzig/Aarau/Vienna
Before Han Coray became a Dada gallerist and collector of African artefacts, he had been a teacher. His progressive approach to
education was presented in his main work Neulandfahrten (Journeys to a New Land: A Book for Parents, Teachers and Children),
which contained children’s drawings and poems as well as classical and modern writings and works. The cover was designed by
his brother-in-law, the Schaffhausen painter Philipp Hössli. Many
Dada artists were impressed by this revolutionary textbook.
55
Letter from Han Coray to Marcel Janco
8 February 1967, Agnuzzo Völkerkundemuseum der
Universität Zürich, archive
Han Coray’s slim volume Neulandfahrten received enthusiastic
reviews from Dada artists such as Marcel Janco. In 1966, Janco
commented: “I steadfastly carried this book around with me, and
viewed it as the very embodiment of Dada”. Han Coray expressed
his gratefulness in this letter to Marcel Janco. Both naïve children’s
art and so called “primitive” art were thought to have a natural and
creative quality believed to have been lost in European art.
56
Exhibition catalogues from the Han Coray
Collection
1931/1932, Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich,
archive
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In the early 1930s, Han Coray was at the peak of his passion for
collecting. In 1931 and 1932 there were four exhibitions of his African collection: at the Museum of Arts and Crafts Zurich, at the
museums of applied arts and design in Winterthur and Basel, and
at Munich’s Ethnological Museum. Coray’s collection comprised
over 2,500 highly varied items, from unique objects to entire ­series.
57
Han Coray Collection: Schweizerische Volksbank
book of photographs
1940s, Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich,
archive
In the late 1920s Han Coray was heavily in debt. The Schweizerische Volksbank took a large portion of his African collection as security, had it inventoried and photographed by the Ethnological
Museum in Zurich, and then finally sold it off in the 1940s. Eduard
von der Heydt purchased around 150 objects, and the Zurich Museum of Arts and Crafts approximately 200. This formed the basis
for Museum Rietberg’s Coray Collection.
58
Index card of a Guro mask (RAF 466) in
Museum Rietberg
Museum Rietberg Zürich, archive
Han Coray’s collection is among the most important holdings of
Museum Rietberg’s Africa section. According to the inventories, a
total of 250 items can be traced back to Coray. Research into the
provenance of this Guro mask has revealed that Han Coray bought
it from the Parisian art dealer Paul Guillaume, who also supplied
the African artefacts for the first Dada exhibitions in Zurich.
59
Cat. 3.13
First Dada exhibition: Contemporary Painting,
African Sculpture, Old Art
1917, exhibition catalogue Galerie Corray Zurich
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, DADA IV: 5
The first Dada exhibition was held in Han Coray’s gallery. After
Cabaret Voltaire had closed, the Dadaists discovered Coray as a
patron who not only provided them with a venue but also gave
them some financial assistance. The Zurich show was the first
time modern art and African art had been treated as equals in a
Suisse exhibition.
60
Advert for the Sturm exhibition in Galerie Dada
61
Programme for the Old and New Art event on
28 April 1917
29 March 1917, reproduction of an advert published in
the previous day’s Zürcher Post
1917, Zürich, Repro
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, V:45
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62
Tristan Tzara
Typescript for a lecture in Galerie Corray
1917, Zurich, paper, printed
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, V:54
63
Invitation to an evening lecture by Tristan Tzara
1917, Zürich, Repro
Kunsthaus Zürich, DADA Collection, V:80
Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire and driving force of the Dada movement, first appeared on the scene with
his art history lectures in Galerie Corray and Galerie Dada in 1917.
His topics were Cubism, old and new art and contemporary art.
Tzara emphasised the intrinsic relationships between all these
creations, despite their wide geographical and temporal divergence. This was a revolutionary viewpoint at that time.
64
Tristan Tzara: “Negro Songs”
Dada Almanac, commissioned by the Central Office
of the German Dada Movement, published by Richard
Huelsenbeck, Berlin 1920
The Dada Almanac contained four “Negro Songs” by Tristan Tzara.
Tzara had read ethnological texts describing rituals, songs and
cult activities in Oceanic and African societies in Zurich’s main
library. While some poems remained virtually unchanged, others
blended the original language with a translation or added sentence fragments to create a wild and confusing Dada construction.
65
Les Ecrits de Paul Guillaume: Une Esthetique
Nouvelle / L’Art Negre / Ma Visite à La Fondation
Barnes, Paris 1993
The Parisian art dealer Paul Guillaume dealt in avant-garde works
of art as well as those from Africa. Starting in 1916 he published
key writings on art theory, describing a new aesthetic which
accorded African art equal status to that of Europe, as well as its
own creative power and historical originality. Guillaume made
African sculptures available to the Zurich Dadaists and became
Coray’s most important dealer.
66
Carl Einstein: Negerplastik
Leipzig 1915
Museum Rietberg and Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich, archive, libraries
In his book Negerplastik (Negro Sculpture), Carl Einstein was one
of the first people to place African art on a par with that of Europe. The glossy pictures of African sculptures and theoretical
essays about the influence of Cubism on modernism were well
received by artists and intellectuals. The collector of African
objects Han Coray wrote a personal dedication to a friend in this
copy of the book to mark her engagement.
67
Unknown artist
Beaded mask
19th/20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kuba
region, wood, beads, kauri shells, textile
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 404, Gift of Eduard von
der Heydt
68
Cat. 3.15,
3.16 and
3.17
Unknown artist
Heddle pulley
19th/early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Guro and Baule
region, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 551, RAF 553, RAF 475,
Han Coray Collection, gift of Eduard von der Heydt
(RAF 551 und 553)
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Han Coray had a deep affinity to the African continent, a connection which motivated him to collect and present the art, cultures
and religions of Africa. The 1931 African art exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zurich presented every aspect of his
collection, from heddle pulleys to masks, receptacles and tools,
each item testifying to a sophisticated level of artistry.
69
View of the “Negro Art” exhibition at the
Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zurich
1931, photographic reproduction
Kunstgewerbemuseum Zürich
In 1931, the Museum of Arts and Crafts of the City of Zurich
presented an African art exhibition entitled “Negro Art” largely
comprising works from Han Coray’s collection. Shown in combination with copies of prehistoric rock paintings which Leo Frobenius had commissioned on an expedition to South Africa, the
exhibition illustrated the artistry and historicity to be found on
the African continent.
70
Han Coray as an Aardgeist or “earth spirit”
(a label bestowed upon him by his wife Dorrie
Coray-Stoop)
c. 1920, photographic reproduction
Pieter Coray Collection
Han Coray (1880 –1974) was a moderniser throughout his life. Having grown up as an orphan, he followed the progressive Reformpädagogik educational approach, both as a teacher and then later
as a gallerist and patron of the arts. His receptiveness to contemporary artistic activity took him into the Dada circle for a short
period. Even if he has never been in Africa, in the 1920s Han Coray
amassed a prodigious African art collection.
71
Cat. 3.8
Man Ray
By Itself II
1918, wood
Kunsthaus Zürich, 1988/89
72
Cat. 3.7
Unknown workshop
Spoon
19th century, Gabon, wood
Musée du quai Branly, 71.1886.77.31
As an experimental artist, Man Ray’s (1890–1976) complex œuvre
traces the reception of non-European art in Europe and the United States. This sculpture, made of assorted pieces of wood, reflects
the expansion of collage into three dimensions. Not only does the
figure stand alone, “by Itself”, but in a metaphorical sense it has
almost been created by itself.
73
Cat. 3.5
Man Ray
Idole du pêcheur
1926, cork
Galerie 1900–2000, Paris, David and Marcel Fleiss
Collection
As Man Ray was walking across the beach at Biarritz in the summer of 1926, he was struck by the beauty of a few pieces of cork
which had been washed up by the waves. What had originally
been the floats of fishing nets and sections of life buoys were now
shaped anew by the natural elements. He mounted the pieces of
cork to create a witty yet tragic figure which recalls the idols of
Easter Island.
74
d ad a Gallery
Cat. 3.6
Unknown artist
Ancestral figure
19th century, Chile, Easter Island, wood, shell
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RPO 309, collected in situ by
Walter Knoche 1911, gift of Eduard von der Heydt
The most well-known figures on Easter Island are the imposing
monolithic sculptures, some of them twenty metres tall, standing in carefully arranged rows on hills and near the coast. Recalling gods and ancestors, they were erected at places of worship
and burial sites. The much smaller wooden sculptures also represent ancestors but were produced for sale early on.
75
Man Ray
Photograph of a Fang mask owned by Paul
Guillaume
1921, photographic reproduction
© Man Ray Trust / 2016, ProLitteris, Zürich
76
Man Ray
Photograph of a Punu mask owned by Paul
Guillaume
1921, photographic reproduction
© Man Ray Trust / 2016, ProLitteris, Zürich
77
Man Ray
Black and White
391 magazine, July 1924
© Man Ray Trust / 2016, ProLitteris, Zürich
After Man Ray came to Paris from New York in 1921, he started
taking photographs of African and Oceanic items from private
collections, museums and curiosity shops. In the process of
transforming the objects into dynamic black-and-white photographs he discovered their creative power. The 1924 photograph
Black and White presented a neo-classicist European sculpture facing a Baule sculpture from Ivory Coast. A few years later Man Ray
created the iconic photograph Noire et blanche.
78
Cat. 3.21
Unknown workshop
Bow of a war canoe
18th century, New Zealand, Maori, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RPO 12, W.O. Oldman,
Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, Arthur Speyer,
purchased with funds from Eduard von der Heydt
This ornate eighteenth-century carving was the bow of a Maori
war canoe. It is decorated with human images: the face, body and
associated motifs. In Maori culture art was related to ancestor
worship. The “Toto Waka” song used by Tristan Tzara has no religious significance, however, and was sung while hauling a canoe
over dry land.
79
Audio station – “Toto Waka”
Tristan Tzara, “Toto Vaca”, 1920, in Huelsenbeck, Richard:
Dada Almanach, New York 1966 (first edition 1920), p. 51
“Toto Waka” in Maori and German, in Bücher, Karl:
Arbeit und Rhythmus 1909 (first edition 1899), p. 173–175
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Tristan Tzara’s “Poèmes nègres” are not Dada sound poems: Tzara
did extensive research into ethnological sources such as Maori
songs. “Toto Vaca” was published in its original language as “Toto
Waka” and Tzara made a few minor alterations, and is thus considered to be a readymade of sound poetry. The Maori language
was very alien and incomprehensible to most European readers,
so what remained was its rhythm and sound.
80
Unknown artist
Crocodile sculpture, clan emblem
Early 20th century, Papua New Guinea, Middle Sepik,
wood, with natural pigments
Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 70.2010.32.1, Tristan Tzara
Collection
81
Unknown artist
Mask
Early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Bete/Guro region, wood,
monkey skin, plant fibres, metallic pigments
Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 73.1988.2.1, Tristan Tzara
Collection
Cat. 3.22
Cat. 3.23
It is not known exactly when Tristan Tzara started amassing his
exquisite collection of African and Oceanic works of art. His passion for collecting was inspired by the interplay between the African art market, his own work with ethnological sources and his
interest in modern primitivist art. His collection was dissolved
and auctioned off in 1988.
The collages and assemblages by Hannah Höch and Raoul
Hausmann date mainly from the 1920s – the heyday of Dadaism in Berlin. In contrast to Zurich, Berlin Dada breathed
the air of revolt, infused with nationalism and militarism,
that emanated from the street battles of the post-war period. The creative frenzy of Dada in Zurich articulated itself
in Berlin as a political and socially critical polemic.
The Dadaist creations of Hannah Höch illustrate the
magical effects obtained by juxtaposing familiar and foreign
images. For her collage series Aus einem ethnographischen Museum, the Berlin Dada artist cut up newspapers and fashion
magazines as well as Alfred Flechtheim’s avant-garde journal
Der Querschnitt, which presented modernist paintings
alongside photographs of non-European artefacts — including pieces acquired by Museum Rietberg’s founding donator, the collector Eduard von der Heydt. Hannah Höch put
all these elements together to produce a new kind of
aesthetic. This exhibition for the first time displays Höch’s
disquieting collages alongside the originals from Africa,
Asia and Oceania.
Hannah Höch’s photomontages have been interpreted as a critique of ideas about modern femininity, about
the familiar and the foreign and about identity and alterity.
Höch’s carefully composed and associative collage world is
anti-hierarchical and propagates the equal worth of different cultural phenomena.
d ad a Magic
dada
Magic
82
Cat. 5.11
Hannah Höch
Never Keep Both Feet on the Ground
1940, collage, photomontage
Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., Stuttgart,
1982/286
83
Cat. 5.12
Hannah Höch
Untitled (From an Ethnographic Museum)
d ad a Magic
1929, collage
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Hamburg
In both collages the head of the airy creature consists of a picture of a Pende mask. While the celestial bird floats over a cloud
of six pairs of legs belonging to ballet dancers, the black-legged
“cephalopod” jumps into the tangle. Hannah Höch’s themes here
are dance and playfulness, reminiscing on the Dada soirées, yet
“otherness” is also a standard component in her compositions.
84
Cat. 5.13
Der Querschnitt, founded by Alfred Flechtheim,
published by H. v. Wedderkop
January 1925, no. 1, Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag
85
Cat. 5.14
Unknown workshop
Pendants, ikhoko
Early 20th century, Democratic Republic of Congo,
eastern Pende region, ivory
Museum Rietberg Zürich, Eduard von der Heydt Collection
These little pendants are not portraits of people, as that might
be taken as evidence of witchcraft, but rather imitations of
various Pende masked figures.The pendants from Ivory Coast were
highly popular up until the independence of Congo, symbolising
African solidarity as well as resistance to the Belgian colonial
state.
86
Hannah Höch
Confectionary box with several magazine
excerpts, scissors and brush
[undated]
Berlinische Galerie
87
Cat. 1.3
Hannah Höch
History of Sculpture of All Peoples through
the Ages
1915, preparatory work for Emil Orlik’s class at the
School of Arts and Crafts in Charlottenburg, Berlin
Berlinische Galerie
Hannah Höch studied at Berlin’s School of Arts and Crafts close to
the city’s Ethnological Museum. It can thus be assumed that her
preliminary draft of a book cover is directly related to the objects
displayed there from North America and Oceania. Höch’s exploration of foreign artefacts, which she later continued in her collages
in a very different manner, may well have started at this point.
88
Der Querschnitt, founded by Alfred Flechtheim,
published by H. v. Wedderkop,
Summer 1926, no. 6, Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag
89
Der Querschnitt, founded by Alfred Flechtheim,
published by H. v. Wedderkop,
September 1926, no. 9, Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag
The magazine Der Querschnitt presented an image of a Sepik flute ornament next to a photograph of the African-American actor Johnny
Hudgins – both with a feather headpiece. The tension between a figure from Papua New Guinea and a mime artist labelled as the “black
Charlie Chaplin” could not have been greater. The European success
of the imported jazz and show scene corresponded with the reception
of non-European art and music which had been catalysed by Dada.
90
Cat. 5.19
Hannah Höch
Album (scrapbook)
d ad a Magic
1933, collage on magazine pages, 57 sheets (114 pages)
Berlinische Galerie, purchased with funding from DKLB,
Berlin 1979
Hannah Höch stuck 400 photographs into this very personal
“album”, and for once she did not cut them up in the style of her
favoured medium, collage. Her interests were broadly defined,
reflecting the major themes of the Weimar republic: film and
photography, nature, ethnology and exoticism, sport and dance,
face and body, as well as the “new woman” in general.
91
Cat. 4.9
Unknown photographer
Hannah Höch with Dada dolls in Berlin
1920, silver gelatine paper, reprint of an original glass
negative
Berlinische Galerie, purchased with funding from the
Department of Science and Cultural Affairs, Berlin 1979
Hannah Höch (1889 –1978) was a Berlin artist specialising in
graphic design and photomontage, but she also used dolls as a
medium. As one of the few female Dada artists her collages have
now become iconic Dada works. The series “From an Ethnographic
Museum” created between 1922 and 1931 explores how otherness
is determined and stereotyped.
92
Richard Huelsenbeck
Dada Almanac, commissioned by the Central
Office of the German Dada Movement
1920, Berlin: Erich Reiß. Incomplete copy cut up by
Hannah Höch
Berlinische Galerie
The Dada Almanac, which was actually a yearbook or calendar,
contains a collection of important writings on the Dada movement between 1916 and 1920. These include Tristan Tzara’s “Zurich Chronicle”, statements by Richard Huelsenbeck (such
as “A Dadaist is someone who is alive”) and other recollections,
thoughts and poems. The Dada Almanac is thus a key source for
the Dada era, which otherwise lacked written and photographic
documentation.
93
Cat. 4.11
John Heartfield
Book cover for Afrika in Sicht – Ein Reisebericht
über fremde Länder und abenteuerliche Menschen
1928, paper on card
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Museum für Gestaltung, Graphic Collection
John Heartfield designed the cover for Afrika in Sicht (Africa in
Sight – Travel Writing about Strange Lands and Adventurous People), a volume of travel writing by Richard Huelsenbeck. On the
front a European officer points his long telescope at exotic palms
silhouetted in the distance. The back was supposed to show a
young African couple in elegant Western clothing standing in
front of a modern building. By turning the gaze of European explorers to urban inhabitants in Africa (rather than “members of
tribes”) Heartfield is undermining Western notions of an exotic
and foreign Africa.
94
Cat. 5.3
Unknown workshop
Flute ornament
Early 20th century, Papua New Guinea, Sepik, Yuat area,
wood, mother of pearl, seeds, hair, plant fibres, pigments
Musée du quai Branly, 71.1960.112.6.1, J.F.G. Umlauff,
Eduard von der Heydt, Charles Ratton, Claudius Cote
d ad a Magic
Flutes with this kind of carved ornament were played in the Sepik
region at initiation ceremonies and exchanged ceremonially
between closely affiliated clan members, which enhanced the
power and reputation of the clan. Umlauff, a company which
dealt in natural history specimens from 1869 onwards and subsequently expanded its trading to include ethnographic materials, brought items such as these to Europe via expedition ships
and explorers.
95
Cat. 5.4
Hannah Höch
Untitled (From an Ethnographic Museum)
1929, collage/facsimile
Kupferstichkabinett SMB, Berlin
The collage consists of a fragment of an image of a North-West
American totem pole, the top half of a naked woman and the
upper part of a flute ornament from the Sepik region. A museum-style plinth provides a visual counterweight. Hannah
Höch’s art questions the separation of we and the other, female
and male.
96
Cat. 5.5
Hannah Höch
From an Ethnographic Museum No. VIII:
Memorial I
1924 –1928, collage on card
Berlinische Galerie, purchased with funding from Stiftung DKLB and funding from the Department of Science and Art, Berlin 1973
The figure is formed out of a picture of a mask and a statue of
the Theban goddess Toeris, both taken from the magazine Der
Querschnitt (1924 and 1925). The left leg with a white shoe comes
from a photograph of a film actress which appeared in the newspaper Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (1928). The hybrid creature on the plinth
questions the presentation of African, Asian and American works of
art in museums.
97
Cat. 5.6
Master of Buafle
Mask with horns, gu
19th century, southern Guro region, Ivory Coast, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 466, purchased by Paul
Guillaume, later Han Coray Collection
Contrary to the assumption that African art was carved by anonymous woodcarvers in a style typical of a particular tribe, this mask
features forms which are characteristic for the artist known as
the Master of Buafle. Examples of this are the curved profile with
its high forehead, slanting eyes and smiling mouth. Gu masks
such as these represent a female creature and are used by masked
Guro dancers.
98
Cat. 4.10
Hannah Höch
Dada dolls
1916/1918, textiles, card and beads
Berlinische Galerie, BG-O 1751/79, purchased with funding
from Stiftung DKLB, Berlin 1979 (reconstruction by Isabel
Kork and Barbara Kugel), gift of the Ministry of Education
and Culture, Spain 1988
d ad a Magic
Hannah Höch presented herself many times with her Dada dolls,
indeed sometimes she was dressed as a doll herself. It is difficult
here to work out who is real and who is a doll, with the dividing
line erased between human and object, animate and inanimate,
self and other. Höch’s Dada dolls can, moreover, be regarded as
tongue-in-cheek replicas of the way primitivism was adapted by
contemporary artists.
99
Cat. 4.8
Robert Sennecke
Untitled (Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann
at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin,
Dr. Otto Burchard’s Art Salon)
1920, reproduction of a vintage print
Berlinische Galerie, BG-FS 077/94,4, purchased with
funding from Stiftung DKLB, Berlin 1979
In contrast to Zurich, Dada in Berlin was less about performance
and more about politically motivated revolt. Dada Berlin was
directed not just against the bigoted morality which continued
even after the end of the First World War, but also against the
nationalism and militarism of the Weimar Republic. Both the Dadasoph Raoul Hausmann and the collage artist Hannah Höch created art that was political rather than pleasing to the eye.
100
Cat. 5.2
Hannah Höch
Untitled (From an Ethnographic Museum)
1930, collage
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Hamburg
The depiction of the torso of the goddess Uma, taken from the
October 1929 edition of the magazine Der Querschnitt, connects
Hannah Höch with the undressed upper half of a white woman
with bobbed hair. The fragment is thus combined to form a whole.
The oversized eye as a critical spirit – a frequent theme in Höch’s
work – comes from another photographic reproduction.
101
Cat. 5.1
Unknown artist
Torso of the goddess Uma
Late 9th/early 10th century, Cambodia, Khmer empire,
sandstone
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RHI 5, gift of Eduard von der
Heydt, previously C.T. Loo, Paris
The sculpture comes from a temple complex in the famous town
of Angkor, the former capital of the Khmer kings in Cambodia. European archaeologists started excavating the temple city back in
the nineteenth century, and soon afterwards the first statues and
bronzes from Angkor were being traded. This was how C.T. Loo, a
leading Parisian art dealer, came to sell items to private collectors
and public museums.
102
Cat. 5.10
Unknown photographer
Untitled (Mechanical Head, 1919,
by Raoul Hausmann)
New print of original glass negative by Floris Neusüss
Berlinische Galerie, Edition Griffelkunst, Hamburg, 2002
The assemblage Mechanical Head is regarded as a Dada icon, for it
symbolises the negation of the traditional notion of art. Materials
completely unrelated to art – a wooden ruler, a card bearing the
number 22 and a telescopic beaker – have been attached to a wig
stand. Like the Kongo power figure, the sculpture thus becomes
magically charged as a Dada reliquary.
103
Cat. 5.9
Unknown artist
Power figure, nkisi n’kondi
d ad a Magic
Before 1892, Vili, Loango, Kongo, wood, metal, glass,
textiles, plant fibres, colour pigments, resin
Musée du quai Branly, 71.1892.70.6, collected by Joseph
Cholet 1892 in Congo
In the kingdom of Kongo minkisi figures (singular nkisi) were endowed with special powers to repel danger, pursue witches and
heal illness. This was achieved by means of efficacious plant or
animal substances, but also through goods imported from Europe.
In the power figure on display here, the medicine container in the
belly has been emptied, but the whole body is still covered with
iron nails and blades.
104
Cat. 5.8
Unknown artist
Helmet mask bo nun amuin with costume
First half of the 20th century, Ivory Coast, mask: Baule
region, wood; costume: Guro region, plant fibres
Museum Rietberg Zürich, 2015.190a, b, collected by Hans
Himmelheber (mask) and Eberhard Fischer and Lorenz
Homberger (costume), gift of Barbara and Eberhard
Fischer
In Western collections there are very few mask and costume combinations, for “masks” were aesthetically reduced to the wooden
section for the head. In Africa, however, the costume, the music,
the movement and the interaction with the audience were all
part of a masked performance. These lively, performative aspects
were revived by the Dadaists in performances that spanned several artistic genres, including masked dances and drum rhythms.
105
Cat. 5.7
Hannah Höch
From an Ethnographic Museum No. X, [1924/1925]
Collage on card
Berlinische Galerie, purchased with funding from Stiftung DKLB, Berlin 1979
106
Cat. 5.15
Hannah Höch
With cap: From an Ethnographic Museum No. XI
1924, collage on card
Berlinische Galerie, BG-G 00061/75, purchased with
funding from Stiftung DKLB and from the Department
of Science and Art, Berlin 1982
For both collages Hannah Höch cut up a picture of a Baule mask
and used it twice. The upper part of the mask with horns is
supplemented by an icy smile, while the lower part of the mask is
crowned by the cap of a uniform. The collages symbolise not only
masculinity and power, but also the militarism of both the First
World War and the colonial era.
d ad a Controversy
dada
Controversy
Carl Einstein was one of the first to call African sculptures
and masks “art” in his publication Negerplastik (1915). The
illustrated sections of the book were enthusiastically received by avant-garde artists, including Dadaists like Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann. Han Coray also owned a
copy of Negerplastik. At the same time, calls for aesthetic renewal — using the cubic forms of African art as a model —
were also politically motivated: Carl Einstein saw in the art
of Africa the basis for the emergence of a new type of person
and artist, yet the aesthetic and political significance ascribed to African artefacts continued to be largely informed
by Western discourse.
By contrast, contemporary artists from Africa and the African diaspora have called into question
Western ideas about the African continent, regarding
them as traditional and static. The post-colonial artist Senam Okudzeto (Ghana, UK, USA) explores what she
calls “Afro-Dada” practices and methods in works like
Portes Oranges. Like the Dadaists before her, Senam Okudzeto gives everyday objects a new meaning by using them
as readymades. The metal orange holders originated from
orange sellers in Ghana, who sell their wares in the street
and at bus stops. The installation, made out of utensils with
female connotations, is intended as an ironic comment on
the phallic dimension of Marcel Duchamp’s iconic Bottle
Rack (1914) and at the same time as a symbol of modern urban Africa.
107
Unknown artist
Amulet
19th century, Hungan region, Democratic Republic of
Congo, ivory or hippopotamus tooth
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 262, previously Carl
Einstein Collection
Avant-garde artists owed their knowledge of African art to the
artist and author Carl Einstein, who published his ground-breaking work Negerplastik in 1915. Einstein personally owned several
African works, including this small ivory figure, which he valued
so highly that it stood on his desk.
108
Cat. 5.20
Unknown atelier
Seated figure with shackles
19th century, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bena
Kanioka region, wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAC 305, Charles Vignier,
Charles Ratton, gift of Eduard von der Heydt
Little is known about the background of this figure. The wellgroomed hair and upright posture indicate a high-ranking person.
It is therefore thought to be a captured dignitary. Although the
sculpture’s dynamic posture is somewhat atypical, Carl Einstein
included it in the African art canon in his publication Negerplastik.
109
Unknown artist
Sculpture of head, cap of a dance stick
19th century, Gabon, Kuyu region, wood, colour pigments
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 981, gift of Eduard von
der Heydt
110
Unknown artist
Head mask nyangbai
19th century, Guinea, Toma region, wood, painted black
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 21, gift of Eduard von der
Heydt
111
Unknown workshop
Mask kodal
d ad a Controversy
19th/early 20th century, Ivory Coast, Senufo region,
wood
Museum Rietberg Zürich, RAF 304, gift of Eduard von
der Heydt
112
Senam Okudzeto
Portes Oranges
2007, installation in MoMA PS1 New York, iron, oranges,
private collection
Orange-sellers in Ghana offer their wares on stands such as this.
Senam Okudzeto gives them new meaning as a Dada-inspired
readymade. The metal structures illustrate the harsh working
conditions endured by women in urban Africa. Contemporary
artists such as Senam Okudzeto locate themselves in a globalised
art world while also presenting a specifically African post-colonial perspective.
The texts for Nr. 38 and 79 are spoken by Celia Caspar, Roman
Haselbacher and Hans Schmidt.