“Von oben,” a collage created by Hannah Höch in 1927, emerges from the Dada art movement and is notable for its figurative genre. This artwork exemplifies Höch’s innovative approach to collage, a technique central to Dada’s challenge against conventional aesthetics and societal norms.
The artwork presents a surreal and disorienting composition, characteristic of the Dada movement. It features two conspicuous figures with distorted facial expressions and connected by what appears to be a tightrope. These figures, seemingly floating in an undefined space, are juxtaposed with a detailed scene below that resembles an aerial view of a bustling urban landscape. The perspective and scale shifts invite the viewer to consider new ways of seeing and interpreting visual information. The collage’s elements, piecing together fragments of disjointed realities, evoke a sense of playful absurdity and a questioning of the viewer’s perceptions.
