Hannah Hoch and James Rosenquist --Insiders and Outsiders...

With the rise of industrialization, globalization, and mass production, the manufacturing productivity has been dramatically increased and accordingly the availability of consumer goods. And with the rise of the mass media, various products have been targeted on broad groups of consumers. Consumerism, which is propelled by a system of mass production and high levels of consumption, has been one of the themes in art works from twentieth century till now. In regard to consumerism and gender, I find two figures—Hannah Hoch and James Rosenquist--connected. Hoch once worked for a womens magazine of the huge Ullstein Press while Rosenquist once earned his living as a billboard painter at Artkraft-Strauss. They had been working within†¦show more content†¦Firstly, Hoch and Rosenquist select subject matters from mass-produced consumer goods that they might have been working with. Both Hoch and Rosenquist, as spectators of the mass media and consumer world, give us a â€Å" snapshot† into the consumer world. For Hoch, she tapped into industrialization and the fashion world. We see mechanical elements in The Beautiful Girl such as the tire, machine handle, BMW logos, industrial bench, and watch. And elements of the New Woman of German Weimar period--bobbed hair, makeup, and exposed legs. (Geneva 2008) For Rosenquist, The Light That Won’t Fail I contains depictions of common consumer objects such as the comb, socks and woman smoking, which would have shown in billboard advertisements. Secondly, the medium that Hoch and Rosenquist use witnesses how mass media, industrialization, and mass consumption marched. The photomontage is like a poster or a magazine page while the oil painting is like most large-scale billboard paintings. The Beautiful Girl and The Light That Won’t Fail I are given the feel of an advertisement. In Hoch’s photomontage and Rosenquist ‘soil painting, we see Hoch and Rosenquist were engaging with the ne w forms of mass media of their time periods. Hoch, as Dadaist, made a great contribution to developing photomontage as medium of representation. Dada artists replaced paint all together, making use exclusively of ready-made