Collage in a Dangerous Time

Fürchtet den Tot nicht, verachtet das Geld (Don’t Fear Death, Despise Money)
by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
20”x16.2”; photograph of photo collage; 1932-1933. Photo ©mumok-Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Donation by Oswald Oberhuber.

FROM KOLAJ 33

The Astonishing Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

For those driven to create during dangerous periods in history, art is not an indulgence. To Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, life under Fascism led to socially committed art, utopian dreams and, finally, tragedy. Her photo collages, made during the rise of National Socialism in Austria, are evidence that imagination can flourish, even in dark times. Ginger Sedlarova recounts the history of this remarkable artist in Kolaj 33, “Between 1930 and 1934, when Vienna was undergoing waves of Nazi terror, Friedl took on Adolf Hitler through anti-fascist and anti-capitalist montages, creating works that attacked Der Führer and his movement and also focusing on children and other victims left behind by the era’s political and moral disasters.”

Dicker-Brandeis’ collages were likely destroyed after she was arrested in 1934 in Vienna and government agents searched her studio. Remarkably, negatives from photographs the artist took survived and allow us to get a glimpse of her work.

Ginger Sedlarova’s profile of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis appears in Kolaj 33. To see the entire article, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj Magazine or Get a Copy of the Issue.

So sieht sie aus, mein Kind, diese Welt (This Is How it Looks, My Child, This World) (detail) by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
19.7″x16.1″; photograph of photo collage; 1933. Photo © mumok-Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. Donation by Oswald Oberhuber

Working with scissors and glue, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis cut photos from magazines, pasting them together to illustrate the chaos she saw happening around her and photographing the result.

Ginger Sedlarova’s profile of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis appears in Kolaj 33. To see the entire article, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj Magazine or Get a Copy of the Issue.

Ginger Sedlarova is a collage artist living in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. She first discovered Dicker-Brandeis’ collages at a show of German and Austrian art of the 1930s at the Neue Gallery in New York and was in awe of Friedl’s use of composition and imagery and her bravery. Learn more about Sedlarova’s work at the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory, at www.gingersedlarova.com and on Instagram @gingersedlarova.