June 19, 2006

John Heartfield's photomontage is on show at the Getty. A prominent Dadaist, he changed his name from Helmut Herzfelde as a protest against German nationalism in WWI, and produced a stream of striking anti-Nazi images. More here and here, and a bio plus quotes here.
posted by Plegmund 18 years ago
  • Hurrah... is a classic. Great post.
  • reminded me of ones i had forgotten--excellent!
  • grand.
  • As a young art student, I never appreciated Dada, being more absorbed by the legerdemain of Surrealism & the expressiveness of Fauvism. Now I'm a bit older with many more humanistic impulses, I appreciate that, ironically, Dada was the more mature movement, even though it sought impetus from 'childish' impulsivity & deep cynicism. In many ways, Surrealism was pretentious, apart from such masters as Magritte (Dali, for all his technical genius, was not deep, nor was his work meaningful in any way other than superficially, imho), whereas Dada had real social bite. George Grosz was another viciously bitter & incisive social critic. Great post, very interesting, thankyou.
  • Powerful images. I remember this one from my art history books. Good post Pleg.
  • Oooh, I just saw this at the Getty back on the 6th! There were some nice comparisons - when the Nazis montaged back, and some early influences - but in sheer quantity of his work alone the Getty's display is surpassed by these links. If anyone wants, I can scan the exhibit pamphlet.
  • These are fine links. Thanks, Plegmund, for another interesting thread.
  • Wow. We were just at the Getty on Friday, and yet we didn't see this (the Eliot Porter exhibition was amazing, though). Oh well... gives me an excuse to go back!
  • Plegmund posts only quality. An asset to MoFi. Never saw a crap post from Pleggers.
  • You're too kind - I have often wished that Mofi had an erase facility. when the Nazis montaged back I'd be interested to see examples if you have any, cobaltnine.
  • There aren't any in the pamphlet, unfortunately. It might not have been montages, but I *think* I recall later reuse of styles that Heartfield did first, by the people in charge. It's honestly a little fuzzy - I was at a wicked party that night - and as I'm back in CT I can't really stop by to see if I was right. It might have been Soviets.
  • What Chy said.