Photo-etching and aquatint printed in black and greenexpand_more
Gift of William P. Kosmasexpand_more 2018.123.4.7
Using photomontage, a collage technique first developed by avant-garde artists associated with the anti-establishment European Dada movement of the 1910s and 1920s, German artist and musician Thomas Zipp confronts a dark chapter in world history in his “Black Dada” portfolio (Mia 2018.123.4.1-.14). Each composition starts with a photograph of Otto Hahn, a German scientist whose pioneering work in nuclear fission led to the development of the atomic bomb, a weapon of mass destruction leading to over 120,000 Japanese civilian deaths in World War II (1939–1945).
Zipp altered Hahn’s portrait by introducing additional photographic images and some hand-drawn passages to create a deep web of associations regarding the social and political consequences of this historic scientific advancement. Several prints in the series, including snow and o.4, allude to the horrific after-effects of atomic tests in the South Pacific.
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