Pissenlit en fleur 1932

Raoul Hausmann made this photograph, Pissenlit en fleur, its date is unknown, on a sheet that measures about 9 by 11 inches. The dandelion plant is shot from directly above and fills the frame, its radiating leaves and flowers making a kind of organic mandala. The photo’s full of grays, from almost white to nearly black, and it's got that grainy texture you get with older photography. There is a certain sharpness of focus on the spiky leaves, lending a sense of drama to this humble scene. The leaves and flowers almost seem to be reaching out. Hausmann was a Dadaist, so you know he was interested in shaking things up. He and others were interested in using photography to see the world in new ways, not just to record it, and in this close-up view of a common weed, we get that sense of seeing something familiar in a totally new light. Like Man Ray’s photograms, this feels like he’s showing us a hidden world, right under our feet.