Hans Bellmer: die Spiele der Puppe

Hans Bellmer (1902-1975), a significant figure in the Berlin Dadaism and Surrealism movements, created a series of photographs from 1933 to 1938 featuring a self-constructed doll, accompanied by texts. These works are central to an extensive analysis of artificial human representations in interwar painting and photography, ranging from de Chirico's 'tailor's dummies' to the mannequins showcased in the 1938 Paris Surrealism exhibition. The photographic series is examined for its internal order and the dynamic artistic productivity that arises from creative failure and its compensation. A comparison of Bellmer's concept of anagram with André Breton's 'automatic writing' clarifies his position within French Surrealism. His depictions of dolls, previously overshadowed by the shock of their sexual and violent themes, are now recognized as integral to Surrealism. Bellmer's obsessive focus on the doll-like object enhances artistic techniques, merging surrealist tendencies with Dadaism and abstract art. He occupies a radical position in the genealogy of doll representations, with references to artists like Oskar Schlemmer, George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, and Max Ernst, highlighting the significance of artificial human images in art during the interwar period. As a figure of transcendence, critique, and an 'automatically' driven puppet of the unconscious, the doll emerges in diverse forms, ultimately blending with the evolving realities