The ‘Monument I’ is an art piece by Hanna Hoch, completed in 1924. It consists of a photomontage with watercolour on paper. Featured in the Monument I is a statue situated on a pedestal that consists of body parts derived from a wide range of photographs. Through her photomontage, ‘Monument I’, Hanna Hoch recontextualizes popular iconography from areas of fashion, sport and history in order to represent and explore the concept of the multi-layered figure of The New Woman.
The right leg of the statue is acquired from a 1928 photograph of German actress and singer Lilian Harvey with her friends at the beach. Hoch draws a parallel between them and the New Woman. Harvey and her friends encapsulate the altered appearance of the New Woman, who had began to sport more androgynous fashion, short hair-cuts, bare skin, and shaved legs.
The torso and arm of the statue are extracted from a photograph of an ancient Egyption deity named Tawaret who is depicted as a hippopotamus with feline attributes, female human breasts, the limbs and paws of a lion, and the back and tail of a Nile crocodile. She is the protective ancient Egyption goddess of childbirth and fertility, who bore the names: “Lady of the Birth House” and “She who is great”. Through this connotative piece, Hoch makes reference to the two labels given to the New Women, as the ‘Victim’ and the ‘Salvation’. Hoch highlights the double burden that the New Woman must cope with: raising a family and working. It emphasizes that the New Woman had not been liberated from her duties towards her family and children, which were still very much prevalent. Furthermore, Hoch displays how society expected the New Woman to act as the saviour. She was expected to display her nurturing and maternal attributes whilst also being efficient, fit and quick. If she was able to successfully merge the two, it would be possible to meet the challenges of the newly rationalized word.
The head of the statue features a photograph of a white Punu-Lumbo mask which is a female tribal mask native to the Ogooue River basin in Gabon, Africa. Their white colour is symbolic of light, beauty and clarity. The beautiful female masks are showcased during the daytime, in contrast to the darker male masks which are considered ugly by the locals. Furthermore, the female masks are linked to female ancestor celebration dances. Through this emblematic element, Hoch illustrates the emergence of the New Woman out of the war. New woman had become enfranchised in a way that she wasn’t before. She had a changed political role. She worked outside of the home, in public. She had become socially and culturally significant. However, it also alludes to the portrayal of the New Woman in the eyes of men who viewed her as a ‘villain’, responsible for taking away work from them.
Finally, Hoch mounts the completed figure of the statue upon a black pedestal or stand. This position can either be given to those either greatly admired or those who are to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. Through the positioning, she represents the trichotomy of the approach that The New Woman engendered among society.
