Page 40 - Studio International - April 1971

Raoul Hausmann II THE FREIE STRASSE GROUP identity than that of the Freie Strasse, whose
Although Richard Huelsenbeck's arrival in obscure philosophy for social involvement was
four notes Berlin in February 1917 gave Berlin Dada its complex in its assimilation of factors from
name, two groups of artists had already arrived psychological and linguistic areas. The journal
at a position in many ways more important for Die Freie Strasse was founded in February 1916
John Elderfield
what followed than the message Huelsenbeck by Franz Jung, who together with Richard
brought from Zurich : the artists associated Oehring was its editor until Hausmann took
with the Malik Verlag—Wieland Herzfelde, it over in 1918. The journal was essentially
John Heartfield, George Grosz—and the circle concerned with the alliance of psychological
of the Freie Strasse—Franz Jung, Raoul enquiry and 'constructive anarchism' within a
Hausmann, Johannes Baader—to name only framework of absolute intellectualism or
those most significant for Dada. Of these two Gehirnlichkeit (cerebrality), believing, in the
circles, the Malik Verlag group is better known midst of wartime, that self-fulfilment may only
not only because of the continuation of this be contemplated if the possibility of effecting
printing house beyond the Dada period but environmental change through individual acts
surely because its more easily categorized of social rebellion is recognized. Drawing on the
communist tendencies have given it a surer `psychotypology' of Otto Gross, which asserted
I RAOUL HAUSMANN AND BERLIN DADA
Raoul Hausmann was born in Vienna on
12 July 1886, and came to Berlin in 1900 to
study painting and sculpture. Immediately
preceding the First World War he published
critical texts in the expressionist journals Der
Sturm and Die Aktion, and made contact with
such artists as Johannes Baader, Hans Richter,
Arthur Segal, Emmy Hennings, Paul Citroen
and Franz Jung. In 1916 he collaborated on
Jung's `psycho-social' magazine, Die Freie
Strasse, and in 1918 assumed sole editorship,
publishing here the first Dadaist texts and
illustrations. The same year he founded Club
Dada with Jung and Huelsenbeck and produced
his first phonetic poems and photomontages,
publishing important texts on these new forms,
including his Manifest von der Gesetzmassigkeit
des Lautes (Manifesto on the Lawfulness of
Sound) and Das neue Material in der Malerei
(The New Material in Painting), as well as
articles on social and psychological problems.
In June 1919 he founded the principal Berlin
Dada periodical, Der Dada. Hausmann played
an active part in the Dada performances in
Berlin during 1918 and 1919 and in the foreign
tour of 1920, as well as in impromptu Dada
provocations, usually in company with Baader.
With the Russian composer Golyscheff he
organized the first Berlin Dada exhibition at
J. B. Neumann's Graphischen Kabinett in May
1919, and with Grosz and Heartfield the
International Dada Fair of June 1920 at the
Burchardt Gallery in Berlin. During his Dada
period, Hausmann published two books :
Material der Malerei Plastik Architektur (1918)
and Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 12 Satiren
(1921). In 1919 he joined the Novembergruppe,
and began associating with abstract and
constructivist artists : Van Doesburg,
Moholy-Nagy, Eggeling, etc. He contributed to
Merz and De Stijl in 1920, organized an
`Anti-Dada' tour with Schwitters in 1921, and
in October of that year signed the seminal
Aufruf zur Elementaren Kunst (with Puni,
Moholy and Arp). He took part in the
Düsseldorf Constructivist International in
1922, and in 1923 joined the G group, the same
year as he abandoned painting to concentrate
on his phonetic and optophonetic poetry.