Essay

Choose either #1 or #2 and write 250 words or create a Video of approximately 3  minutes responding to the questions below. Include sources if any. Note: If you wrote about this work for your Discussion, please choose the second essay.

1. Essay or Video: Watch the Video  Hannah Hoch’s “Cut with a Kitchen Knife…”Links to an external site.

Hoch’s artwork expresses key ideas in Dada art philosophy. 

• What is the topic in each of the four quadrants outlined in the Video?
• Discuss the title and refer to how the use of “kitchen knife” is described in        the Video.
• Hoch’s use of non-art materials from mass media is a Dada technique oft repeated. How is the use of photographic and news images a political act in the case of Dada?
• What kind of vision or utopian ideas does Hoch’s work suggest?

Provide an interesting Title for your Essay. Provide Artist, Title, Date and place made for the artwork. Provide medium(s) used.

2. Essay or Video:  Andre Breton was a leader of the Paris Surrealist group. Use the first Surrealist manifesto (Required Reading, Week 4) to respond to the following:

PDF: http://uploads.worldlibrary.org/uploads/pdf/20121102214233manifestopdf_pdf.pdf 

• How did Breton define ‘surrealism’ in the first Surrealist Manifesto?
• What was he critiquing in the Manifesto and what was he promoting?
• What does Freud’s analysis of dreams have to do with ‘surrealist’ art?
• How are Dada and Surrealism are connected?
• Give examples of artworks by 3 -5 surrealists.

Provide an interesting Title for your Essay. Provide Artist, Title, Date and place made for any artworks discussed. Provide medium(s) used.