"The Beautiful Girl" clad in a modern bathing suite, with a light bulb for her head, seated on a steel girder, surrounded by various images of industrialization. For example, BMW insignias, tires, gears and cogs and watches. In the right hand corner a black boxer appears stepping through the tire representing automation. In the back ground a silhouette of a woman's head with cats eyes stares at the audience.
Being modern meant speed, consumerism, urbanization and technology, these changes promoted hope for the women. Yet amongst the hope came fear as seen in the watchful cat eyed woman who lurks behind the scenes staring out at the audience. In this juxtapositinoing of images Hoch reflects upon a certain optimism for technology and its relationship to the modern woman.
Text from - http://www.yellowbellywebdesign.com/hoch/madchen.html
For more info on Hannah Hoch:
Indeed, one of Höch's primary preoccupations was the representation of the "new woman" of the Weimar Republic, whose social role and personal identity were in a complex process of redefinition in the postwar period. Women enjoyed new freedoms, including the right to vote in 1918 and an increased presence in the working world, albeit in low-paid positions. The subsequent increase in disposable income made women a prime audience for the mass press, which became a venue for the expression of desires and anxieties associated with women's rapidly transforming identities. Juxtaposing photographs and text to both endorse and critique existing mass-media representations, Höch parodied elements of bourgeois living and morals and also probed the new, unstable definitions of femininity that were so widespread in postwar media culture.
Text from: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2006/dada/artists/hoch.shtm
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