Crazy Pablo: Kitchen Knife & Beer-Belly

Top Right – The Old Guard (marked red)

Here’s where the empire clings on. You’ll spot the oversized head of Kaiser Wilhelm II(1) With a funny mustache made of wrestlers, general Hindenburg(2) as an exotic dancer and Noske(3), minister of defense, with other fading figures of the Weimar elite. Höch mocks them with absurd juxtapositions—mustaches made of wrestlers, heads on dancers’ bodies. It’s like a political roast with scissors. This quadrant is everything Dada wanted to take down.

Lower Right – Dada Goes Wild (marked yellow)

This is the heart of the chaos. Welcome to the Dadaist playground, where Hannah Höch(1) inserts herself—literally—alongside her fellow provocateurs: Raoul Hausmann(2), George Grosz and John Heartfield(3). Heads float on ballerinas, divers, and bathers. It’s satire as collage, rebellion as choreography. And somewhere in the corner? A tiny map of women’s voting rights(4). Feminism, meet photomontage. We also see Niddy Impekoven with John Heartfield(5) in a bathtub, the head of modern art critic and writer Theodore Daübler(6) on top of a baby body. on the left corner we see Lenin, and there’s another Dadaist, Johannes Baader with one of the communist leaders, Karl Radek(7).

Upper Left – Reason in Pieces (marked blue)

Even logic gets no mercy. In this zone, Einstein shows up with a warning: “Dada is not an art trend.” This quadrant is a collision of science, press clippings, and pure visual noise. It’s the intellectual implosion of a society trying to make sense of a world turned upside down.

Lower Left – Revolution Rising (marked green)

Crowds gather. Text swirls. The face of Karl Liebknecht, who was executed just months before - anchors a growing wave of resistance, he is calling ”Join DADA!”. This is where the masses live. Where Dada becomes a movement, not just a mood. Höch channels both grief and momentum here, sketching a new kind of future from the ruins of the old.

Think About It 🤔 

A kitchen knife. A symbol of domesticity, of the so-called “feminine” space. But in Höch’s hands, it’s a tool of radical disruption. With it, she slices through political propaganda, patriarchal power, and cultural convention. The message? Even the most private, seemingly passive spaces—like the kitchen—can become sites of rebellion.

How does it relate to the here and now? or What to say during casual conversation to show off your art knowledge?

Have another beer – “If you're feeling overwhelmed by news, politics, and media today, take a cue from Dada: slice it up, mix it around, and find new meaning in the madness.”

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