Lynette Roth – författare

An unprecedented delve into the dazzling, inventive and long-overlooked Surrealist photograms and poetry of Anneliese HagerThis publication introduces the untold story of German artist and poet Anneliese Hager. Active from the 1930s to the 1960s, Hager began her photographic experimentation in Germany during the Nazi censure of modern art. Her preferred medium was the cameraless photograph, or photogram—an image made by placing objects directly on (or in close proximity to) a light-sensitive surface and exposing the assembled material to light. In its final form, a photogram is a one-of-a-kind work that reverses light and dark: the longer the paper is covered, and hence unexposed, the brighter the covered parts will be, and vice versa. Hager called these bright areas "white shadows."Hager’s photograms offer a more inclusive history of the medium, synthesizing the technique’s 20th-century avant-garde trajectory (best known in the work of László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray) and its 19th-century prehistories in the realm of science and in practices such as the making of silhouettes, collage and textile arts—pursuits often coded feminine. In 1945, all Hager’s existing artwork was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during World War II. This book offers an unprecedented reconstruction of her development and postwar creation of otherworldly, Surrealist visions in photograms and poems, a selection of which appear here in English for the first time. For Hager, the photogram was significant for its provocative tonal inversions and surprising chance effects, but also for what emerges from the dark.Anneliese Hager (1904–97) was a German Surrealist poet, translator and photo artist. She began making photographs in Berlin in the 1920s, and from 1935 began to experiment with photograms. Hager also made the first German translations of French authors such as Apollinaire, Breton, Char, Jarry, Lautréamont and Yourcenar.

An examination of shifting notions of identity in modern-day Germany—and the diverse artists challenging conventional meanings of “Germanness” today  Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation addresses important questions of contemporary art and belonging in Germany from the 1980s, when discussions about multiculturalism in West Germany came to the fore, to our current time, a period still deeply impacted by the country’s unification and more recent migration policies. In the wake of these developments, racial violence, right-wing populism, and ethnically defined nationalism have grown. Accessible essays on topics such as labor migration, being Black in Germany, and the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall lay the groundwork for understanding the intercultural dynamics in Germany today. Object-focused texts delve into works in various media, from Candida Höfer’s slideshow Turks in Germany 1979, which presented Turkish immigrants as embedded in public life at a time when they were not welcomed as a permanent part of German society, to Ngozi Schommers’s readymade sculpture Commuters, a commentary on the country’s ongoing housing crisis. In a period when right-wing nationalist movements are gaining traction in Germany and around the globe, Made in Germany? argues for a more expansive idea of what it means to be German, spotlighting artists from diverse backgrounds whose works probe notions of national identity.  Distributed for the Harvard Art Museums  Exhibition Schedule:  Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA(September 13, 2024–January 5, 2025)

Three books in one (Ger./Engl.) Nan Hoover, Anneliese Hager and Maria Lassnig are women artists who expressed themselves experimentally and innovatively in various media. They were interested in alienation effects, body perception, and reflections about time and space. All three explored Surrealism early on and found their own individual visual language in different ways: the common denominator is a preoccupation with light, space and the body, as well as the existential question of self-perception and one’s place in the world. While American Hoover was one of the pioneers of international light, video and performance art and produced a surprising painterly early oeuvre close to pop art, Hager, who is one of the most interesting female photographers of the 20th century, remains very little known. Today, Austrian painter Lassnig is one of the most important female artists of the 20th century, but she only achieved her international breakthrough late – in the 1980s. This publication, three books in one, enables readers to rediscover the three artists, or even discover them for the first time. Nan Hoover (1931–2008), light, video and performance artist Look inside Anneliese Hager (1904–1997), photo artist, poet Look inside Maria Lassnig (1919–2014), painter, graphic artist Look inside Art, body, (self-)perception - a focused, concentrated introduction to the work and biography of three 20th century women artists Exhibition: Kunsthalle Mannheim, 10 November 2023 to 28th April 2024