THE MESSAGE IS THE MESSAGE
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John Heartfield. Photography plus Dynamite.
This major exhibition featuring the work and life of John Heartfield has been staged at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in Spring 2020. I have always been a respectful admirer of Heartfield’s imagery. A pioneer of activism through political photomontage, Heartfield used image material from various sources – often ‘found’ in printed publications from which he cut and pasted, re-photographed and retouched image elements into new constellations, creating new meaning. In his montages photography’s perceived claim of re-presenting ‘reality’ merges into visibly montaged imagery that results in immediate visual statements – realities that are otherwise kept out of visibility.Heartfield was a fighter from and for the disempowered. His work raged against themes that are still well known to us today, such as human misery caused by the poverty resulting from obscene wealth inequality or the lunacy of war driven by profiteers at the expense of the lives of human ‘canon fodder’.
The work that most people know best is that which raged against the Nazi regime in Germany. Working against a system for which strictly controlled bombastic visual spectacle was a massive part of its propaganda conspiracy, Heartfield’s ‘crude’ imagery is a poignant and sharp tool to puncture the faked veneer and to ‘bash the lies into the face’ (‘Der Lüge in die Fresse hauen’). His work was obviously taken very seriously by the Nazis. Heartfield managed to escape an attempt to arrest him in his home in Berlin, which would surely have resulted in a torturous death. Continuing his work from exile in Prague, the Nazis kept him high up on their most wanted list until the end of their reign of terror.
What I always specifically appreciate about his activity is that his images had a successful ‘street presence’ at the time, through the publication in various print media including street posters and also the covers of magazines which had an additional visibility on newsstands. What I admire here, is the fact that these images are the work of a man with a mission who uses photomontage to make his points. This work is real political activism, its prime aim was to carry a message and it was made for the (people on the) street and it reached these with effect. Heartfield's work was not made to be 'Art'.
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One does not dare to imagine what the Nazis could have done with access to such data? But then … the tendency to read what people want to read was also catered for during the Weimar Republic. In 1928 more than 3300 Newspapers were published in Germany with 147 in Berlin. The Nazis also completed their terrible job thoroughly and without data surveillance. They knew that they needed to eliminate the convinced opinion makers.
Where does this leave activism through art today? I can think of a good number of artists celebrated by the art world for work that is political and for being considered to be activists. Doubtlessly though, the contemporary art market mirrors exactly the conspiracy of the consumerist market system which neutralises anything that opposes its control. It commodifies all critique. What really is the point of a political message that is carried by a work of art on sale on a gallery wall where only selected insiders will see and appreciate its message. We know, that galleries are shops and much art is aimed at the taste of known collectors. Art reflecting on climate change – exhibited at an art fair… this is when I feel real desperation. In the photography art world we find many projects that are of the kind that is investigative journalism that would be informative in a press publication where is would draw attention to an issue otherwise out of sight. What is it doing on a gallery wall, addressing the in-crowd of the art world? What use are the writings of artists in specialist art magazines. Political activism? Preaching to the converted? Self-congratulation? … Part of the problem?
The best example is surely the story of US artist Barbara Krüger’s 1987 screenprint ‘I shop therefore I am’. Made in her trademark (!) style, the piece shows a black and white photograph of a hand holding a sign reading this cynically altered Descartes statement, considered a base stone of Western philosophy, replacing ‘thinking’ with ‘shopping’. A simple and clever piece of art carrying a clear message. The montage was used in 2006 by a London department store as advertising for its sales.
I don’t have an answer and I feel ambivalence towards many of these contemporary political works. As much as I like and appreciate them, I cannot overlook their impotence. OK – art is catharsis. Art is meditation but I can never stop wondering if this type of catharsis is not after all complicit and part of the problem. There might be some effect in the secondary distribution. As a photography teacher, I referred to Heartfield and contemporary heirs to his work for years and found that their images regularly inspired my teenage students considerably. The material my students researched and used was always exclusively found online.
It is a tragedy that the Corona crisis has prevented the readily installed Heartfield exhibition from being visited by the public. There is no doubt that real first hand experience of art works is a different experience to seeing reproductions. Yet – perhaps there is an irony here in the fact that the closed exhibition has led to a massive effort of online distribution, which is much closer to the ‘street presence’ of Heartfield’s activism than any framed original on an Academy wall could ever be. In Heartfield’s work the message is the message.
The Akademie der Künste, Berlin holds all of Heartfield’s estate and
has produced two fantastic permanent online resources:
Kosmos Heartfield at
www.johnheartfield.de
and a complete catalogue of Heartfield’s works, sketches and some
source material:
www.heartfield.adk.de
The ADK has also published a list of
online material about the exhibition .
The exhibition catalogue, which won the Deutschen Fotobuchpreis 20|21,
can be ordered at the Akademie bookshop:
buchladen@adk.de.