The first time I saw this picture years ago, it was introduced as a Dadaist work by a female experimental artist. One who had managed to produce unusual geometric costumes in a time where the work of female artists was seen as of (even) lesser value. Viewing this photo after having come to inhabit decolonial approaches meant being able to make other connections. I came to understand that modern art itself was grounded in the idea of incorporating the savage, the non-beautiful, and that this was understood by the Dadaists as a subversive act that opened roads to thinking aesthetically different, as was the case in another way for example with Picasso and his collection of African masks. Therefore, revisiting this photo meant asking new questions.
After looking at the picture, one may wonder: What was being represented in the sewn clothes? The publication of this photo is not always accompanied by an explanation of what is represented in the costumes.
In the context of the 100 years celebration of Dadaism, Frieze magazine wrote an article which published the photo of Sophie Taeuber-Arp:
"Sophie Taeuber-Arp and her sister, Erika Schlegel, in Hopi Native American-themed costumes designed by the artist, 1922. Courtesy: Fondation Arp, Clamart" As published in Frieze magazine in 2015 (2) 
In the text of Frieze, one can also read: "Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp was primarily inspired by the Hopi kachina dolls of Arizona. In creating the costume seen in figure 8, she first created a detailed sketch on paper. The result was a vividly colored outfit with abstract and geometric designs, representative of this versatile artist's work, which, influenced as it was by that of other cultures, was exemplary of the Dada aspiration of non-elitist art that is without borders." (1)
It is not unusual to see this sketch by Sophie Taeuber-Arp without mentioning the original reference. In the Frieze article, it appears simply as "Design for a Costume."
Revising Dada
The 100-year anniversary of Dada was a point of celebration in European art history. Dada, which was born in 1916, means a moment of avant garde where art not only broke with representation and aesthetics of canonical beauty but inaugurated with its performances, poetry, and manifestos a way of thinking about contemporary art as we nowadays know it. Artists aligned no more through style but through a shared ideal of their role as artists and their vision of the impact of their art in society. In 1916, Europe was nevertheless more so than ever in the middle of colonial processes and formations of power with several distant colonies around the globe. The art produced in several of these colonies was a source of inspiration in the European avant-garde, although removed from context, authorship, or a sense of equal recognition.
At the same time, the revisiting of Dada's history also meant a revisiting of patriarchy in the arts and the differential recognition avant-garde artists received according to gender, where transgender and female positions were either erased or presented as complimentary. Dada had been thought of as principally a male group.
At the same time, the revisiting of Dada's history also meant a revisiting of patriarchy in the arts and the differential recognition avant-garde artists received according to gender, where transgender and female positions were either erased or presented as complimentary. Dada had been thought of as principally a male group.
In an effort to confront the patriarchal systems at work within modern artistic fields, the work of female dadaist artists was and is being given attention with the same scope and recognition as that of their male counterparts. But with this move, new imbalances are being created.
With gender relations in mind, this costume photo by Sophie Taeuber-Arp is understood as the rescuing of female subjecthood in European art history. The Argentinian philosopher Maria Lugones proposes that thinking about gender without thinking about race and colonialism can nevertheless result in a type of problematic "feminism." Sometimes such feminism even rescues female figures that were important in colonization processes. It celebrates the courage of female colonizers, female monarchs, and female rulers who stood with colonialism.
At the same time, the question of how to deal with ethnographic collections in European museums continues to gain space.
Kachinas, or spiritual figures
Knowing that the so-described 'costumes' were inspired by kachinas, or spiritual figures of the
indigenous Hopi peoples of Arizona, I was deeply intrigued by who the beings or entities represented. What spiritual qualities did these entities carry? Had Hopi people written about these Dadaist works? Had they written about which Kachinas were the ones portrayed?
In the context of understanding artistic and spiritual activism as a way to heal society, I found it was key to learn about this. I looked at the reviews of Sophie Taueber-Arp's work, but despite the abundant text and research on her work, I simply could not find this information. The publication of the 100 years of Dada exhibition in Germany, which showed both the Dadaist works and the source of inspiration, also did not find it relevant to specify what or who was being portrayed.
I searched sites managed by Hopi people that referenced Hopi artists and finally found these dolls being referenced, albeit not in any regard to the dadaists. When looking at all the different versions of the dolls, one realizes that the 'costumes' were not somewhat a source of inspiration but that they had come simply and directly from concrete Katsinam tihu or Kachina dolls.
I learned that the katsinam represent messengers to the spirits of ancestors and natural forces. They are personifications of things in the real world: the spirits of minerals, game, domestic animals, plants, trees, wind, and the dead. They are messengers who are asked to exert their beneficial powers to help people live in harmony. The number of invoked Katsinams ranges from 250 to over 400. They are meant to be given as a present by a male relative to Hopi girls and women when they marry. The katsinam are connected with the cosmovision of the Hopi as one and equal with other beings on the planet. The Hopi planted corn for themselves as much as they planted for other beings. The dances the Hopi people perform are inextricably connected to the tihu.
Met Museum about the Katsina (Angwusnasomtaqa)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/314930
German Site on the Kachina dolls
https://www-diewanderer-info.translate.goog/tithu/einleitung?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Tumas or Crow mother
Could a change of perspective in order to repair erasures be imagined or understood? What would it be if instead of "Sophie Taeuber-Arp and her sister Erika Taeuber, Hopi Kachina costumes, 1921-1922" the description would read "Hopi Art : Tumas (Crow mother, Right) and Cotukinunwu (Humming bird, Heart of the sky, Left) as reproduced in Swiss peoples art."
I don't question that Sophie Taueber-Aro built costumes based on the spirit gods of the Hopi. I dont know if she really related to the spiritual connections convoked here. If she knew what she was making reference to and if she truly related to the mother crow spirit, I only know that she didnt leave references to this. It is my perspective that in practice aesthetics and spirituality move across geographies and worlds. But I also know that this happens within hierarchic structure and not all artistic expressions have historically being considered as having the same resonance.
Historically, what the Hopi manifested in the Katsinam was considered in a sort pre-stage of contemporary art on the basis of having been produced for rituals. This is not my perspective, instead I believe that the arts can be in parallel ways of living and surviving as well as ways of manifesting and reconnecting to the one consciousness we are. The history of avant garde art as breaking with literal representation and adopting geometric forms was I believe a misunderstanding of what life needs in order to sustain itself. And in that sense those modern histories need to be redone if not altogether abandoned. A true history of what arts are would detach them from Europe as their epicenter and would recognize that those who were considered savages, in the time that European Art History was in the making, were not transfixed on authorship, were combining the individual and the collective, and were paying attention to transpecies relationalities in a non-antrhopocentric manner. Such rewritings and realizations are the task that we are endowed with.
In the mean time, the Hopi masks used in ritual dances continue to be objectified and disconnected from their original purpose, as they appear in European collections and on sale in auction houses in Europe against the will of the Hopi people, who, like the rest of the peoples all over the Americas and in other excolonized spaces, see themselves disrobed of their cultural heritage.
https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/c-g-jung-hopi-indianer-und-dada-im-nordamerika-native-museum-in-zuerich-wird-daraus-eine-irre-geschichte-ld.1441661
(1) «tut» A Trans-Disciplinary Exhibition Project. on view DADA AFRIKA.
https://docplayer.net/52723672-Tut-a-trans-disciplinary-exhibition-project-on-view-dada-afrika-dada-afhka-is-the-first-exhibition-devoted-specifically.html
https://docplayer.net/52723672-Tut-a-trans-disciplinary-exhibition-project-on-view-dada-afrika-dada-afhka-is-the-first-exhibition-devoted-specifically.html
(2) Mad World. https://www.frieze.com/article/mad-world-0