Agitated Images: John Heartfield & German Photomontage, 1920–1938

September 21, 2007–February 10, 2008
The Wolfsonian–FIU @ 1001 Washington Avenue

John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld) was a pioneer of modern photomontage. Working in Germany and Czechoslovakia between the two World Wars, he developed a unique method of appropriating and reusing photographs to powerful political effect. Agitated Images focused on Heartfield’s designs for books and magazines, exploring the close relationship between his photomontage and the troubled context in which it was published.

The exhibition drew particular attention to the magazine articles Heartfield’s montages illustrated, the original press photographs used as source images, and the contemporary political commentary that served either as his model or foil. Often transforming the meaning of source photographs in his montage process, Heartfield sought to disclose the “truth” obscured by the mainstream press and by the propaganda of his opponents, reshaping public perception by challenging the photographs that had helped form it. At a time of great political uncertainty, Heartfield’s agitated images transformed photomontage from a vehicle of the avant-garde into a broadly useful mode of visual communication, while forecasting and reflecting the chaos Germany experienced as it slid toward political and social catastrophe.

Agitated Images was organized by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.