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Hold Fast To Dreams

~ Where the light cannot be muzzled.

Hold Fast To Dreams

Monthly Archives: January 2013

John Heartfield : Using art to protest

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by annfw in Uncategorized

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Heartfield Hitler's Best Friend
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Heart dove
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Helmut Harzfeld born in 1891, changed his name in 1917 to John Heartfield . This proved to be a brave, defiant action for the German born artist. His name change occurred in period of fervent nationalism and anti British feeling as WW 1 raged and was a response to what he felt to be an anti- foreigner attitude throughout Germany. This was seen as a particularly unpatriotic thing to do (Vallen). This outspokenness and defiant attitude characterized his art. Heartfield was both a pacifist and Marxist. He joined the Communist Party in 1920 and was an ‘early and ferocious enemy of Hitler and the Nazi movement’ (Facing History) Heartfield’s work continuously satirized the ‘madman who seized control of his country’(Vallen). This outspokenness and prolific outpouring of his photomantges for the AIZ( workers’ magazine) ultimately made him a target of the Nazi Party who sought to silence him.

HeartfeldHitler_web

Adolf the Superman swallows money and spouts junk.

Heartfield used photomontage, a process where he used existing images, rearranged them, juxtaposing images and symbols to create  powerful statements that warned about the rise of Hitler and showed the effects of the Nazi social policies on the ordinary citizen . Heartfield’s biting satirical images used ‘laughter as a devastating weapon’ to expose the violence of Hitler and his Nazi regime’. Heartfield satirized the ‘cult of the leader’ sending up his posture ,gestures and symbols’ to expose the absurdity of the Hitler’s regime.

Hitler attempted to silence Heartfield and his criticisms with an issue for his arrest in 1933. Heartfield escaped to Prague and settled there until Germany invaded Czechoslavakia in 1938. He then fled to Britain. Even the British were uncertain about supporting his art and for a while he was placed in an interment camp for “enemy aliens” (Paul Getty Museum)

His technique of photomontage was new and an effective way to respond to the political tension of the of Weimar republic. He said:

There are a lot of things that got me into working with photos. The main thing is that I saw both what was being said and not being said with photos in the newspapers… I found out how you can fool people with photos, really fool them… You can lie and tell the truth by putting the wrong title or wrong captions under them, and that’s roughly what was being done…”

Heartfield money

The Meaning of the Hitler Salute: Little Man Asks for Big Gifts, 1932
These montages parody Hitler’s most iconic poses, gestures, and symbols to create the impression that one need only to scratch the thin surface of Fascist propaganda to uncover its absurd reality.

Bertolt Brecht, a famous German playwright said of Heartfield:

‘John Heartfield is one of the most important European artists. He works in a field that he created himself, the field of photomontage. Through this new form of art he exercises social criticism. Steadfastly on the side of the working class, the unmasked the forces of the Weimar Republic driving toward war; driven into exile he fought against Hitler. The works of this great artist, which mainly appeared in the workers’ press , are regarded as classics by many, including the author.

View more of Heartfield’s images below:

Part 1-3 of a documentary Zygosis about John Heartfield

Choose an image that you find arresting and analyze this. Share your thoughts and reactions on your blog.

Read more about Heartfield here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWheartfield.htm

Agitated Images from J.Paul Getty Museum

Wikipedia article: John Heartfield

No Man is an Island

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by annfw in Uncategorized

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Questioning Children 1949 by Karel Appel 1921-2006Reflect on these words by John Donne from the 1624 Meditation 17.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Watch Jason Von Gederen’s short film :Mankind is no Island, winner of the 2008 Tropfest short film festival. This was shot entirely on cell phones.

How do these two texts, Donne’s Mediation and Von Gederen’s film, connect to the The Island by Armin Greder and The Blokes by Alan Gibbons? Reflect on the idea of ‘the stranger’, identity and difference in your blog. How do we look at difference?

How do we treat those with different customs?

How as a community ( at school) do we value originality and individuality? Or…  Do we seek to eliminate this?

Do we punish those who are different? How?

In exploring this read the poem by James Berry below:

What do we do with a Variation?

What do we do with a difference?
Do we stand and discuss its oddity or do we ignore it?
Do we shut our eyes to it or poke it with a stick?
Do we clobber it to death?
Do we move around it in rage
and enlist the rage of others?
Do we will it to go away?
Do we look at it in awe
or purely in wonderment?
Do we work for it to disappear?
Do we pass it stealthily
Or change route away from it?
Do we will it to become like ourselves?
What do we do with a difference?
Do we communicate to it,
let application acknowledge it
for barriers to fall down?

Image: The image above is entitled:Questioning Children by the Dutch artist Karel Appel. Click here for more information and other painters associated with Appel and the COBRA group. These painters attempted to create a liberating, childlike effect and feeling with their paintings as they threw off the restrictions of other art movements after the World War 2. I chose this image as the painting is in a new style- itself a difference, yet looking within, you see the individual differences of each questioning child. To me this painting is a celebration of difference.

Recent Posts

  • Weapons of the Spirit: The Courage of Le Chambon
  • Upstanders: Portraits of Courage
  • Otto Dix: Exposing the horror of war
  • George Grosz: Commenting on suffering, corruption and vice
  • John Heartfield : Using art to protest

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