Raoul Hausmann

 

Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch, 1st International Dada Convention (Berlin, 1920)

On the 1st of February 1971, Austrian artist and writer, Raoul Hausmann, died in Limoges, France. He was one of the founders of Berlin Dada. Together with Richard Huelsenbeck, George Grosz, John Heartfield, Fritz Jung, Hannah Höch, Walter Mehring and Johannes Baader, he established the famous Club Dada, where all kinds of evening events, poetry performances, and lectures took place. The first staged event, on the 12th of April 1918, with Huelsenbeck’s reading of the Dada manifesto – “Dadaism in Life and in Art,” followed by the Cubist dance performed by George Grosz, ended with Hausmann’s lecture – “The New Materials in Painting”, which investigated man’s “sexopsychic capacity” in art and explored the art of real objects. The lecture, as well as all the other performances of the night, caused a great stir among the public; this is how Hausmann described the atmosphere during the event:  “My text, “The New Materials in Painting,” created such a commotion that the management, who was worried about its paintings displayed on the walls, switched of the lights in the middle of my speech, condemning me to darkness and silence.” (Raoul Hausmann, Am Anfang War Dada, 1972).