The politics of collaboration: Brothers, friends, the party and the performance of John Heartfield, 1915-1938.
Item
-
Title
-
The politics of collaboration: Brothers, friends, the party and the performance of John Heartfield, 1915-1938.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9618097
-
identifier
-
9618097
-
Creator
-
Roth, Nancy Ann.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Rose-Carol Washton Long
-
Date
-
1996
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Art History | Mass Communications | History, European | Literature, Germanic
-
Abstract
-
When the German painter Helmut Herzfeld began using the new name John Heartfield in 1916, he signalled not only a protest against the nationalist sentiment of wartime Germany, but also the intention to develop a new identity. "Heartfield," this study proposes, began as a collaborative performance involving Helmut, his brother Wieland Herzfelde, and the painter and caricaturist George Grosz. Initially the project helped to resolve a series of social and psychological conflicts centered on the relationships among the three men. Once established, however, it functioned to specify a range of media (photographs, type), a division of labor among collaborators, and a sense of dramatic conflict between the collaborating group and a shared external enemy. These proved stable enough to define an artistic identity for over two decades.;Heartfield's identity is most clearly legible in the series of 237 photomontages made for the Communist weekly newspaper Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (A.-I.-Z.). In this body of work, the artist appears to share with his audience a perception of current events distinguished by its difference from the kind of perception ordinarily demanded by print media. Heartfield finally emerges as a figure whose engagement in mechanized and collaborative production embodied a new relationship to his audience and a radical challenge to the underpinnings of a "personal" artistic identity.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
