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PRESSKITRAOUL HAUSMANNVISION IN ACTION02 | 06 – 05 | 20 | 2018

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SUMMARY

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EXHIBITION

PRESS RELEASE

BIOGRAPHY

CATALOGUE

PRESS VISUALS

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

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PARTNERS

Coproduction Jeu de Paume / Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg.

With the collaboration of Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, Musée d’art moderne and contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Berlinische Galerie in Berlin, Musée national d’art moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou, and private collections.

Thanks to the Hôtel Napoléon, Paris.

The Jeu de Paume receives public funding from the MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE

and its main corporate sponsors are NEUFLIZE OBC and MANUFACTURE JAEGER-LECOULTRE.

MEDIA PARTNERS

A NOUS PARIS, L’Obs, Connaissance des Arts, Paris Première et Radio Classique.

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Cover Raoul Hausmann Untitled, 1931 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

� �Raoul Hausmann was a central figure of the Berlin Dada movement, a pioneer of sound poetry, who spearheaded collage and photomontage. He was also a writer, editor, and experimenter across all genres. Franz Jung referred to him as a ‘cultural agitator of 1920s’ Berlin’. In the late 1930s, Hausmann was also a passionate, prolific, sensitive and lyrical photographer. Bringing together over 130 vintage prints, all produced by Hausmann himself, this exhibition presents a photographic œuvre that has remained unrecognized and unheralded for too long.

� �This is the first time that Hausmann’s photographic work has been the subject of such an extensive retrospective in France. The exhibition opens at the Point du Jour in Cherbourg, before coming to the Jeu de Paume. ‘Raoul Hausmann. Vision in Action’ benefits from a number of exceptional loans, from institutions boasting collections of work by the artist, primarily the Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart and the Berlinische Galerie; collections that continued to grow until relatively recently. Other first-rate public and private collections, both in France and Germany, have contributed to the exhibition, with some work being displayed for the first time.

� � In 1931, Hausmann considered himself a photographer. His practice was honed far from Berlin, in the dunes of the Baltic and the North Sea. An emotive photographer, capturing remarkable moments or sights on his numerous walks, he never sought the perfection of an overly immaculate image, seamlessly constructed and arranged, but rather the interstices of freedom and wonder, which he referred to as ‘beauty without beauty’. This sense of calm or tranquillity can be seen in the way his work has resisted and maintained its dignity, against the ravages of time.

� �Within the space of an intense decade—from 1927 until his forced departure in 1936, from the island of Ibiza, where he had sought refuge in 1933, shortly after the Nazis’ rise to power—Raoul Hausmann produced over a thousand prints, many of which were published or exhibited in their day, before taking up residence in the archives of memory. These images and their diffusion situated him in a specific milieu—Germany, Paris (where he spent time in 1935), and later in Czechoslovakia (the only retrospective devoted to the artist’s work during his lifetime was held in Prague, in 1937). Hausmann’s work incites the public to reflect upon a network and history of photography, inhabited by figures such as August Sander, Raoul Ubac, László Moholy-Nagy, etc.

At the crossroads of the New Vision and New Objectivity photographic movements, Raoul Hausmann’s work is constructed within a poetics of distance or difference with regard to normality. Both experimental and ‘classical’ at the same time, he liked nothing better than resolving and surpassing oppositions. His sublime sculptural and mineral nudes contrast with the monstrosity of the Nazi body. His images of plants, sea spray, changing light and materials, are images of disorder, stripped of all authoritarian vision. In all respects, this photography, produced using a bare minimum of equipment, serves a project of a heightened existence.

� �Hausmann reflected about the social and political uses of images, particularly in Ibiza, in his work on vernacular architecture, an inventory of buildings that aimed to invalidate the idea of ‘origin’ and ‘race’. This project around the notion of habitat, in the philosophical sense of the term, responds ultimately, like the ensemble of his work, to the maxim that underlines his oeuvre: ‘you alone should construct the limits of your universe’.

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RAOUL HAUSMANNVISION IN ACTION 02 | 06 – 05 | 20 | 2018

To this day, Raoul Hausmann’s photography has not had a dedicated museum exhibition in France. As a photographer, Hausmann has long remained underrated and unheralded. However his key position in 20th century avant-garde photography has continually been re-evaluated and his importance is widely acknowledged these days.

We know Hausmann as the prominent artist of Dada Berlin, as the author of assemblages, collages, lautgedichte, etc, yet the vicissitudes of history caused the obliteration of his photography, an essential facet of his oeuvre. From 1927 onwards Hausmann became an avid and restless photographer. His photographic practice quickly became a cornerstone of his multi-faceted reflections and activities, pushing him in a new direction which culminated in his forced departure from Ibiza in 1936.

Between 1927 and 1936, Hausmann engaged in a discussion about the nature and the role of photography with August Sander. He published a body of theoretical texts and was part of a group that included such notorious figures as Raoul Ubac, Man Ray, Elfriede Stegemeyer, and Lázló Moholy-Nagy. The latter once stated: ‘All that I know, I’ve learnt it from Raoul‘. Considering Hausmann’s clandestine crossing of the century, it is no surprise that his photographic oeuvre was forgotten. Labelled a ‘degenerate‘ artist by the Nazis, he hastily left Germany in 1933. As an exile, Hausmann suffered the dispersion, and sometimes the destruction, of his work. His photography was seldom displayed and survived unnoticed until the late seventies. It was long supposed to be lost, until an archive (now at the Berlinische Galerie) was almost miraculously discovered at his daughter’s home after her death.

The French photographic archive of Hausmann’s work, kept mainly at the Musée de Rochechouart andopened in 1985, continued to grow up until 2010. This institutionalization of his work has generated an on-going re-appraisal. Hausmann the photographer is astonishing. In contrast to the sarcastic and biting tone generally associated with his Dada period, his photographs are a means to pacification. They convey a sense of reconciliation, a serenity that did not prevail before. In the late twenties Hausmann felt more and more oppressed in Berlin. He took long vacations in small villages by the North Sea and the Baltic, villages described by his partner Vera Broïdo as ‘shelters‘ and ‘hide-outs for artists‘. There, he took photographs of the sand, the foam, the bogs,

trees, naked bodies, curvy dunes, wheat, weeds, insignificant things that dazzled him. His attention also focused on humble objects, cheese graters, cane woven chairs, wicker baskets, which he transformed through the use of light and shadow. Hausmann calls these experimentations ‘melanography‘. They strikingly exemplify his definition of what an image is: ‘the dynamics of a living process‘.

Hausmann’s arrival in Ibiza in 1933, shortly after theReichstag fire, opened a new perspective. Fascinatedby the peasant houses built in the shape of white cubes, he began a photographic inventory of this ‘architecture without architects‘. Photography became partly a study dedicated to vernacular architecture from an anthropological point of view. Hausmann also discussed notions such as ‘origin‘ or ‘race‘ that emerged in contemporary architectural circles. Fully integrated in the island’s life, he lived in a ‘state of dream‘, as if outside time. Hausmann also pursued a project begun in Germany that revolved around two broad categories, portraits and the vegetational or organic forms.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in which he briefly took part as a Republican (Ibiza being the first territory abandoned to the Francoists as early as 1936), marks the beginning of his wandering across Europe. During his exile, Hausmann no longer had the possibility of dedicating himself so passionately to photography.

Curator: Cécile BarguesAssociate Curator: David Barriet

Coproduction Jeu de Paume / Le Point du Jour,Cherbourg

Catalogue Raoul Hausmann. Photographs 1927-1937Texts by Cécile Bargues and Nik CohnCoedition Jeu de Paume / Le Point du Jour / Musée départemental d’art contemporain de RochechouartEnglish version edited by Koenig264 pages, €39

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BIOGRAPHY

to break up in Berlin, Hausmann believes the spirit of Dadaism to be continued in his person: ‘Dada was a word, but the intellectual and individual condition encapsulated by this word lived on for two years in my mind.’

1927 First holidays at Kampen on the island of Sylt; then at Jershoft. Vera Broïdo joins Raoul Hausmann and Hedwig Manckiewitz, whom he married in 1923. Hausmann begins a photographic practice to which he would devote himself entirely from 1930-31 onward. He also continues writing for his book Hylé, a project he would continue into the 1950s.

1929 Begins a collaboration with the review a bis z, the voice of the Cologne Progressives; makes the acquaintance of August Sander, who photographs him dancing. Hausmann dances regularly in the 1920s,

in an abstract, solitary and minimalistic fashion, by constructing an ethereal geometric space, perceptible only in the moment.

1931 Gives the opening speech at the exhibition ‘Fotomontage’, organized by the Constructivist artist César Domela at the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin.

1932 Publication of his photographs in a variety of German magazines throughout the 1930s. Publication of Autoportrait with the essay ‘How to consider photography?’ in Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1933.

1933 27 February: the burning of the Reichstag. 10 March: Hausmann is qualified as a ‘degenerate artist’ by the Nazis, he hastily leaves Berlin in the company of Hedwig Manckiewitz and Vera Broïdo, both of whom are Jewish. On 27 March, they arrive in Ibiza. 10 May:

1886 Raoul Hausmann is born in Vienna on the 12 July.

1900 Studies painting and sculpture.

1912 Frequents the Expressionist milieu, notably painter Heckel who is a member of Die Brücke; however, he distances himself from Expressionism during the war, when Henwarth Walden publishes his ‘Anthem in Praise of Prussianism’ in the review Der Sturm.

1915 Meets Hannah Höch, Hans Richter, Arthur Segal, Franz Jung, Emmy Hennings, future members of the Dada movement. Hannah Höch becomes his partner up until 1922.

1918 Establishment of the Club Dada in Berlin: Raoul Hausmann, Johannes Baader, Franz Jung, George Grosz, Richard Huelsenbeck, Hannah Höch and the Herzfelde brothers. Hausmann is known as the ‘Dadasoph’. He creates his first collages, assemblages, photomontages, and phonetic poems. The principle of photomontage (which he names klebebild, ‘glued picture’, takes its inspiration from a popular tradition.

1919 Spartacist revolution, assassination of Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht in Berlin (January). Big Dada event: sound poems by Hausmann, which he refers to as ‘ soul automobiles’. Creation of the review Der Dada with Baader. A period of intense literary and editorial activity. 1920 Major Dada tour with Baader and Huelsenbeck throughout Germany and Czechoslovakia.

1921 ‘Anti-Dada and Merz’ event with Schwitters in Prague. At a time when the movement is beginning

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burning of books in Berlin; his book Hourra! Hourra! Hourra! (1920) is burnt.

1934 Vera Broïdo puts an end to their relationship. Hausmann travels to Paris, where he works with Raoul Ubac. First article on houses in Ibiza for the Swiss review Œuvres.

Accompanied by his photographs, this article is followed by others, in 1935-1936, in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, D’Ací i d’Allà, A.C, etc.

1935 Publication of four photographs in the collective publication Formes nues. Hausmann has the optophone patented in England: this machine, which was never actually made, was deemed capable of transforming sound into coloured light and vice versa: ‘based on a system of combining numbers using a photo-electric base.’

1936 18 July: start of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona. Hausmann enlists with the Republican side in Ibiza, the first region lost to the Francoists. October: arrives in Zurich. Exhibition of his photographs from Ibiza at the Kunstgewerbemuseum.

1937 February: Expelled from Switzerland. March: Features in ‘Entartete Kunst’, a defamatory exhibition organized by the Nazis in Munich against degenerate art. The Museum of Fine Arts in Prague presents a retrospective of his photography work. This would be the only retrospective devoted to the artist during his lifetime. In Prague, he encounters numerous opponents of Hitler’s regime, particularly his friend, Franz Jung. Plans to write a ‘new history of art’.

1938 Back in Paris, he meets up with his friends Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and exhibits at the first Salon des Réalités nouvelles in 1939.

1939 Following the declaration of war, Hausmann travels to Peyrat-le-Château, in the Haute-Vienne region. Up until 1950, he publishes various texts on photography, of a primarily technical nature, which are published in the Swiss review Camera.

1940 Marthe Prévôt moves in with the Hausmann couple in Peyrat. Hausmann tries to immigrate to the United States, but is unsuccessful, despite the help of Moholy-Nagy who invites him to teach at the Institute of Design in Chicago (New Bauhaus).

1945 Cut off from his entourage in Limoges, living in destitution, over the years that follow, he corresponds with a large number of people. Magazines and news about the art scene reach him from all over the world.

1946 Plans to create a review with Schwitters, P.I.N.: ‘We are in need of new trends in poeting and paintry.’ Hannah Höch organizes, amidst the ruins of a post-war Berlin, the exhibition ‘Fotomontage’ featuring works by Hausmann.

1953 Exhibition at Sarrebrück organized by Otto Steinert, a key figure of the Subjektive Fotografie movement.

1954 Participates in ‘Subjektive Fotografie II’. Exhibition ‘Dada 1916-1923’ at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, and in all of the Dada retrospectives presented in Europe from 1957 onward.

1958 Publication of Courrier Dada. Both an account and a collection of texts, the publication looks at the history of photomontage, amongst other topics.

1967 Retrospective, without photographs, at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, curated by Pontus Hulten. Hausmann establishes ties with several young artists, such as Henri Chopin and Claude Viallat. In 1964-1966, he corresponds with them, as well as with Guy Debord, George Maciunas, and Dick Higgins.

1968 Publication of Mélanographie, featuring six original photographs.

1971 Raoul Hausmann dies in Limoges on 1 July.

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CATALOGUERAOUL HAUSMANN. PHOTOGRAPHS 1927-1932Texts by Cécile Bargues and Nik Cohn

Coedition Jeu de Paume / Le Point du Jour / Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

English version edited by Koenig

264 pages, 39 €

RELATED WORKS

Raoul Hausmann Courrier Dada, nouvelle éd. de Marc DachyParisAllia2004(Le Terrain vague, 1958)

Jeu de Paume Bookshop / www.librairiejeudepaume.org1, place de la Concorde, Paris 8e Tuesday (late-night opening): 11 am - 9 pm Wednesday to Sunday: 11 am - 7 pm / Closed on Mondays +33 (0)1 47 03 12 36 / librairie@jeudepaume.org

Jean-François Chevrier Les relations du corps ParisL’Arachnéen2011

Cécile Bargues Raoul Hausmann. Après Dada BruxellesMardaga2015

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Raoul Hausmann Untitled (Vera Broïdo), circa 1931 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Raoul Hausmann Untitled (Fleur de chrysanthème), between 1927 and 1933 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Raoul Hausmann Untitled (Herbe des dunes), circa 1931 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

PRESS VISUALS

Press visuals to download at

www.jeudepaume.org

Username : presskitPassword : photos

The copyright-free reproduction and display of the following selection of images is permitted solely as part of the promotion of this exhibition at the Jeu de Paume and only while the exhibition is in progress.

All or part of the works included in this press kit are protected by copyright. The works of the Adagp (www.adagp.fr) can be published under the following condi-tions:- For press publications which have concluded an agreement with the Adagp: refer to the stipulations of the latter.- For other press publications:• exemption from the first two works illustrating an article devoted to a topical event directly related to them and a maximum format of 1/4 page;• beyond this number or format reproductions will be subject to reproduction / representation rights;• any reproduction on the cover or on the front page must be the subject of an application for authorization from the Adagp Press Department.These conditions are valid for websites having online press status, it being understood that for online press publications, the definition of the files is limited to 1600 pixels (cumulative length and width).

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Raoul Hausmann Petite Fleur en Herbe, 1932 Photomontage © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Raoul Hausmann Untitled (chardon), 1932 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Raoul Hausmann Enfants de la Frise, between 1927 and 1933 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

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Raoul Hausmann Dune mobile, septembre 1931 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Raoul Hausmann Deux nus féminins allongés sur une plage, circa 1931-1934 © ADAGP, Paris, 2018. Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Guy Carrard

Raoul Hausmann Untitled (Pied dans le sable), circa 1931 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Concernant le visuel des deux nus féminins, chaque magazine peut publier gratuitement l’image en ¼ de page intérieur maximum, sous réserve qu’elle soit destinée uniquement à la promotion de l’exhibition. L’article doit préciser le nom du Jeu de Paume, le titre et les dates de l’exhibition. Merci aux journaux souhaitant publier le visuel en couverture, 4e de couverture ou en plus d’un ¼ de page intérieur, de bien vouloir s’adresser à l’ADAGP (01 43 59 09 79 / adagp@adagp.fr) pour connaître les conditions tarifaires correspondantes.

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Raoul Hausmann Maison paysanne (Can Rafal), 1934 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Raoul Hausmann Monsieur Mariano Ribas, 1933 @ Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Raoul Hausmann Trois chaises, 1934 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

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Raoul Hausmann Untitled, 1931 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Raoul Hausmann Regard dans le miroir, 1930 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Raoul Hausmann Untitled (Paysage de dunes), between 1927 and 1933 © ADGAP, Paris, 2018 © Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

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Raoul Hausmann Untitled, 1931 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Raoul Hausmann Le Triangle (Vera Broïdo), circa 1931 Coll. Marc Smirnow © ADAGP, Paris, 2018

Raoul Hausmann Nu sur la plage, between 1927 and 1933 © Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole © ADAGP, Paris, 2018

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Raoul Hausmann Material der Malerei, 1918 © Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

Marthe Prévôt Raoul Hausmann tenant sa sculpture-assemblage L’Esprit de notre temps, 1967 © Documentation du Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart

August Sander Raoul Hausmann as Dancer, 1929 © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Cologne, / ADAGP, Paris, 2018

The copyright-free reproduction and display of the fol-lowing selection of images is permitted solely as part of the promotion of this exhibition at the Jeu de Paume and only while the exhibition is in progress

Press visuals to download at

www.jeudepaume.org

Username : presskitPassword : photos

OPENING TIMESTuesday (late-night opening): 111 am–9 pm

Wednesday to Sunday: 11 am–7 pm / Closed on Mondays

ADMISSIONPlein tarif: 10€

Tarif réduit: 7,50€

PRESS VISUALSCopyright-free visuals can be downloaded www.jeudepaume.org

Homepage : Press •Username : presskit / Password: photos

CONTACTSPress : Annabelle Floriant

01 47 03 13 22 / 06 42 53 04 07 / annabellefloriant@jeudepaume.orgCommunication : Anne Racine

01 47 03 13 29 / anneracine@jeudepaume.org

@Jeudepaume#Jeudepaume

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