Monday, April 1, 2013

No Thoughts


2/27/13: No Thoughts

 



The Spirit of Our Time, Raoul Hausmann

                This piece reflects much of the core principles of the Dadaism movement in the early 20th century. One of the chief and foremost figures of the Dadasoph group, Hausmann (the artist) had a strong hand in the ideas and politics put forth by the group.  The Dadaists had very negative feelings about World War I and the violence they saw, and chose to rebel against it, which was reflected in works such as the one above.  Here we have a wooden mannequin, to which has been attached: A tape measurer, wooden ruler, tin cup, spectacle case, labels, and a piece of metal.  These items were attached specifically to a mannequin to suggest that we as people are nothing more than mindless mannequins that become only the things that have been fixed to us.  Hausmann even went so far as to say that the average German “has no more capabilities than those which chance has glued on the outside of his skull; his brain remains empty.”  Many of his works were seen as radical reversals of a theory put forth by George Wilhem Freidrich Hegel, which was “Everything is mind.”  By creating this work, Hausmann is saying there is no mind; only a receptive head.

More on the work:


A study on Hausmann as a whole:

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