AIZ-Magazine and the Photomontage of John Heartfield: the Aesthetics of a Political Statement

Fig 1. 1929, John Heartfield mit Polizeiprasident Zorgiebel. (John Heartfield with Chief of Police Zorgiebe), Photograph.

“USE PHOTOGRAPH AS A WEAPON!”

That was the slogan over the entrance of John Heartfield's room at Film und Foto exhibition that opened in Stuttgart in 1929. The room was occupied by Heartfield’s work demonstrated by his aim of using Photomontage as a tool of political protest. In 1939 Heartfield began to publish his Photomontage work in AIZ-Magazine which was based in Berlin. The name “AIZ” was formed by taking the first initial of each word (Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung) which-in English-stands for (Workers Illustrated Paper), indicating that AIZ magazine was intended to be a Pictorial/Illustrated magazine.

John Heartfield’s work corresponded with the great depression in the capitalist countries.

Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) was born in berlin in 1891. After the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, Helmut was called up in 1914 where he served as a guard in Berlin for most of year 1915, by the end of 1915 he was discharged on the account of ill health. As a protest against the war and German anglophobia, Helmut Herzfeld changed his name and became John Heartfield.

Fig 2.1934, Wie Im Mittelalter... ...So Im Dritten Reich. (As in the Middle Ages... ... So in the Third Reich), Photomontage.

Heartfield Adapts a dead body on the Swastika as “Humanity being punished by divine Nazi judgement.” With reference to the medieval torture instrument, the Wheel as “The image of humanity punished for its sins on the wheel of divine judgement” As a statement to show the suffering of the German people under the ‘guidance’ of Adolf Hitler and his cronies.

Fig 3. 1933, Das kreuz war noch nicht schwer genug. (The Cross was not yet heavey enough), Photomontage.

Hitler attempted to merge Catholics with Protestants into a single church, This might have been a reference to which Hitler was practicing Nazism even when it comes to religions which are supposed to be the free will and choice to individuals.

Fig 4. 1930, Zwangslieferantin von Menschenmaterial Nur Mut! Der Staat braucht Arbeitslose und Soldaten! (Forced supplier of human material Take courage! The state needs unemployed workers and soldiers!), Photomontage.

Disturbing view of a pregnant woman who is referred to as “Forced supplier of human material” with a background depicting a young dead male referred to with “Workers and soldiers”

This Photomontage appeared in an issue commemorating International Women’s Day, 8 March 1930. The montage was later published in 1962 in Wieland Herzfelde’s book with the title “Ihr Mutter, lasset eure Kinder leben...!” (Mothers, let your children live...!)

John Heartfield seemed to confirm the possibility of making an artwork that was both politically emphatic and visually innovative. Between 1930 and 1938 Heartfield published 237 photomontages in AIZ magazine, his photomontages were always a combination of image, text demanding the reader and the spectator. In Heartfiled’s photomontages, language was plays a vital role, his message is conveyed through an inseparable melding of word and image producing a powerful and a clear message. Heartfield’s choice and arrangement of type for his AIZ work was in general static and unadventurous, not that he had no interest in type, but because he was more keen on aiming at the functionality of the text, the clarity of the message counts for more than a striking ornamented text that would take the attention away from the imagery resulting in distraction from the true function of the message he is aiming at.

Heartfield saw himself as party artist dedicating his work to social realism, His work was more of a revolutionary alternative to the increasingly wide-spread use of photomontage in advertising during the late 1930’s.

Fig.1932, Der Sinn Von Genf. (The Meaning of Geneva), Photomontage.

Where capital lives, peace cannot live!

"In Geneva, city of the League of Nations, crowds of workers demonstrating against Fascism were shot at with machine guns"

The attack on the League basically had become a generalized anti-war statement.

Many Montages that were originally responses to politics during the thirties were adapted to a new situation in Germany as the threat to world peace. In the adaptation of Der Sinn Von Genf (The meaning of Geneva) which is dated 1960, the photograph of the League Nations in Geneva with a Fascist flag flying above it was replaced by painted fames, and the subtitle “Where capital lives, peace cannot live!” became the slogan “Niemals Wieder!” (Never again!)

Photomontage could be said that have started after the first world war although, Photomontage had it's roots way back in history, ever since the mid 19th century when photography was invented/ became practical. Means of photomontage such as Double exposure and composite pictures made by Dark Room masking were popular means in the art of photomontage during the Victorian era as means of amusement for instance: to create a strange looking creature, or having the wrong head stuck on a different body, but not until the revolutionary time that followed the great World Wars, were a group of artists called themselves the Dadaists drastically changed the purposes of photomontage to a whole new different means of expression where the revolutionary art of photomontage was used as an effective tool for political propaganda, and social realism. Heartfield was one of those names that left behind a truly meaningful artwork expressing the wrath of the people of Germany, rejecting all means of social suppression at his times, His art was never concerned with commercialism or posterity, he produced art for the people creating a different meaning for photomontage.

List of Bibliography:

Heartfield, J., & Herzfelde, W. (1977). Photomontages of the Nazi period. Michigan, U.S: Universe

Books.

Heller, S. (2004). Design literacy: Understanding graphic design (2nd ed.). Retrieved from

http://books.google.com/books?id=q6KR1P5bVtYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=design+literacy&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kahn, D. (1985). John Heartfield: Art and mass media. Minnesota, U.S: Tanam Press.