Hannah Höch’s radical imagination: a study on the transformation of reality through space, language and a politicised psychoanalysis. Volume 1 of 2: Written thesis Andrea Kay Tabernacle UCL PhD Thesis September, 2017 1 Declaration I, Andrea Kay Tabernacle confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract This thesis presents an analysis of Höch’s work in relation to the idea of radical imagination. It proposes that Höch activated radical imagination in her work, aiming to transform perceptions of reality, in order to create social change. In pursuit of such change, Höch was influenced both by psychoanalysis and philosophy, in particular, by Salomo Friedländer’s concept of creative indifference. The target for radical imagination is the dismantlement and reconstruction of the prevailing moral, social and aesthetic order, from its root. This study argues that its effect derives from its rootedness in the perception of subjective realities. Beginning in the unconscious processes of looking and the construction of concepts of self and other, it is radical in means as well as in intention towards fundamental changes in values. While not directed at specific political aims, it is argued here that there is, nonetheless, an ethical and political imperative. The research has been carried out through an examination of Höch’s work in context, including by reference to Walter Benjamin and Sigmund Freud. Her work is also considered in relation to other Dada artists and the writer, Til Brugman. This study also uses art-practice to model, speculate and reflect on radical imagination. Both Friedländer and Höch develop their ideas through art: Höch in her varied practice and Friedländer through grotesque stories. Höch’s development of methods to enact radical imagination can be understood as akin to contemporary practice-based research. In foregrounding Höch’s ideas about imagination and reality, from her statements and the visual evidence of her work, this thesis aims to produce a new interpretation of Höch’s work, based on the attribution of agency to Höch as a pioneering cultural producer: her work contributing to a wider articulation of ideas about imagination with importance beyond the discipline of Fine Art. 3 Table of contents Declaration ......................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Table of contents .............................................................................................................. 4 List of figures .................................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 26 Prologue ........................................................................................................................... 28 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 30 Dada............................................................................................................................... 37 Biographical approaches ............................................................................................. 41 Social context ............................................................................................................... 47 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 54 Chapter one: Höch’s radical imagination .............................................................. 62 Imagination and Höch ................................................................................................ 62 Part 1. Meanings of imagination ................................................................................ 71 The contested field of imagination ........................................................................... 76 Part 2. Imagination and radical transformation....................................................... 80 Art, reality and change ................................................................................................ 86 Höch’s radical imagination ......................................................................................... 91 Chapter two: Reality and space: Höch’s metaphysical imagination ............. 98 Creative Indifference ........................................................................................................ 112 Höch’s metaphysical space ....................................................................................... 120 Creative indifference, gestalt and space .................................................................. 132 Subjectivity, symbolism and space .......................................................................... 145 4 Chapter three: Imagination and language ........................................................... 172 An art that speaks ...................................................................................................... 173 Representability .......................................................................................................... 179 The imaginary bridge ................................................................................................. 185 The grotesque ............................................................................................................. 188 Metaphors and cross-sections .................................................................................. 198 Word/image................................................................................................................ 206 Multisensorality in word/image ............................................................................... 219 Chapter four: Radical imagination’s unconscious eye ..................................... 240 Surrealism, psychoanalysis and chance ................................................................... 243 Politicising the unconscious ..................................................................................... 249 The ‘Mynona-Segal-circle’......................................................................................... 253 The ‘Uncanny’ ................................................................................................................ 258 Höch’s use of psychoanalytic ideas ......................................................................... 274 The unconscious eye in action ................................................................................. 281 Chapter five: Body as a site of imaginative transformation ............................ 287 Embodied imagination and the soul ....................................................................... 288 Freud’s models of the psychical apparatus ............................................................. 294 Warenhaus der Liebe as an allegory for the psyche ................................................... 312 Mechanisms of transformation ................................................................................ 319 Food – image – money ............................................................................................. 336 Discussion and conclusions ..................................................................................... 345 Enactment of radical imagination ....................................................................... 349 Reality and space: Höch’s metaphysical imagination ........................................ 349 Radical imagination’s unconscious eye ............................................................... 354 Body as a site of imaginative transformation ..................................................... 355 5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 358 Epilogue ........................................................................................................................ 362 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 363 Volume 2 of 2: Appendices ........................................................................................... 383 Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ 384 Appendix 1: Supplementary illustrations ............................................................. 386 Appendix 2: Galerie texts for De Bron, 1929, and Galerie Franz, 1949 ........ 402 Appendix 3: Fantastische Kunst ............................................................................. 405 Appendix 4: Grotesk ................................................................................................... 408 Appendix 5: Warenhaus der Liebe ......................................................................... 410 Appendix 6. Related practice: discussion and documentation .................... 416 Appendix 7: Hannah Höch - Timeline ................................................................. 498 Apendix 8: Text from which Textual Deluge was made ................................. 505 Appendix