About the exhibition
Raoul Hausmann was one of the most innovative avant-garde artists of the modernist era. Art and life, in his view, were inextricably connected. His desire to discard familiar forms and constantly enact “tomorrow” made him a trailblazer in multi-media art. As a Dadaist he was among those who invented collage, but he also devised synaesthetic apparatus, penned experimental texts, gave performances that explored the relationship between body, sound and space, and merged the visual with the haptic in his photography. Throughout his life, not only in his art but also in his quest for new ways to live and to think the world, he was eager to break free of convention and swim against the bourgeois tide.
The big retrospective at the Berlinische Galerie, featuring some 200 works from collections in Germany and abroad, will showcase this multi-facetted and pioneering creativity which so influenced subsequent generations of artists and place it in the context of current discourse.
Hausmann’s late œuvre, produced after he left Nazi Germany for France, will feature prominently thanks to generous input from the Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne ‒ Château de Rochechouart. This continues the acclaimed series of collaborative ventures between the Berlinische Galerie and other European museums.
Credits
Raoul Hausmann, The Art Critic, 1919/20, Tate, Purchased 1974
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © Tate
Robert Sennecke, Untitled (Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Höch at the First International Dada Fair), 1920 Berlinische Galerie, © Copyright expired, Repro: © Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, ABCD, 1923/2
Musée national d‘art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Prints and Drawings Collection, Purchased 1974, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © bpk/CNAC-MNAM
Raoul Hausmann, OFFEAH, Typographic Composition (Poster Poem), 1918, Berlinische Galerie, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, Fmsbwtözäu, Typographic Composition (Poster Poem), 1918
Musée national d‘art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Prints and Drawings Collection, Purchased 1974, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © bpk/CNAC-MNAM
Raoul Hausmann, Untitled (Melanography), October 1931
Berlinische Galerie, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, Untiteld (Foam of a wave), 20 February 1932
Berlinische Galerie, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, Ohne Titel (Kitchen table), undatiert
Berlinische Galerie, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, Dada Raoul, 1951
MACHV – Château de Rochechouart, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © MACHV – Château de Rochechouart and Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Raoul Hausmann, Untitled (fmsbw tezöu pgiv zamü), 1963
MACHV – Château de Rochechouart, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Repro: © MACHV – Château de Rochechouart and Berlinische Galerie/Anja Elisabeth Witte
Imprint
© Berlinische Galerie, Museum for Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, 2025. The rights to the text and images belong to the authors and the coypright owners. All rights reserved.
Texts: Raoul Hausmann
Translation: Katherine Vanovitch
Audio production: Sprecherdatei
Design and technical implementation: 3pc