*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Raoul Hausmann: Fotografien at the Städtische Galerie Erlangen, 7 May 7–1 June, 1984.
Raoul Hausmann was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques had a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.
*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.
Raoul Hausmann’s photographic work has long been underrated. This key artist of the twentieth century is remembered primarily for the central role he played in Berlin Dada with his assemblages, photomontages, and optophonetic poems, yet the vicissitudes of history caused his photography, an essential facet of his oeuvre, to be cast almost entirely into the shade. From 1927 on, Hausmann became an avid and restless photographer in Germany, in particular during his stays at the North Sea and Baltic coasts. While in exile in Ibiza after the Nazis came to power, he took an interest in the local populace and vernacular architecture, before emigrating again in 1936. During this intense decade, he reflected extensively on photography, developing a highly individual practice in the medium, simultaneously documentary and lyrical, inextricably linked to his way of thinking and living.
Produced on the occasion of the exhibition De Afstand, at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, 1 September 1990–7 October 1990.
De Afstand investigated the relationship between photography and reality, by way of the concept of distance. The selected works focused on the representation of nature. Historically, the genre of the landscape painting had presupposed a specific viewing distance as well as the display of a changing continuity and unity in a tableau. The camera, however, cannot present such a unifying picture of nature. It cannot keep a distance. It functions rather as an analytical instrument, cutting like a scalpel into the continuity of the visible world.
Participating artists were: Jean-Marc Bustamante, Paul-Armand Gette, Andreas Gursky, Raoul Hausmann, Craigie Horsfield, Jean-Luc Moulène, Thomas Struth, Christopher Williams.