RAOUL HAUSMANN | "The Art Critic"

Holding a Venus pencil in this right hand, a heeled shoe glued to his brain, his eyes and muth hidden by superimposed features and a sharp segment of a 50 deutschmark bank note embedded in his neck, Hausmann's view of this art critic is both critical and controversial. Through whose eyes does he really see? Whose words does he really speak? And whose payroll is he on?

One of the many self-proclaimed inventors of photomontage, Hausmann used cut-up photographs and pages from newspapers and magazines to construct his world of cynical imagery. This work is an example of the Dada movement, whose members would incorporate ordinary objects into their art, often employing an absurd sense of humour.

In 1925, Hausmann abandoned painting and four years later invented the optophone, an apparatus which turned kaleidoscopic forms into music.

Source:
Adam Butler,
Claire Van Cleave and Susan Stirling
The Art Book
(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994)
p.210