John Heartfield, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Bjørn Kowalski-Hansen, Lisa Kirk, Mark Titchner Beginning around 1910, vanguard artists demanded that true art go beyond the intellectual and transform daily life.- And Yet It Moves! - John Heartfield, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen, Lisa Kirk, Mark Titchner - MOT, GB-London Featured are Piet Zwart, a Dutch designer who brought his minimalist aesthetic vision to ubiquitous items like biscuit boxes and postage stamps Karel Teige, leader of the Czech avant-garde, who produced brilliant book and journal designs his compatriot Ladislav Sutnar, who brought modernist "good design" to tableware, clothing, and children's toys Gustav Klutsis, who pioneered using photomontage for political purposes Lazar (El) Lissitzky, who produced some of the most exciting book, poster, and exhibition designs of the 1920s and '30s in Germany and Russia and German artist John Heartfield, who worked exclusively in photomontage to design book covers, journals, and agitational posters for the Communist cause.A new exhibition of revolutionary artist John Heartfield's prints testifies to a lifetime of political commitment and the enduring resonance of his art for those seeking change, writes Katherine Connelly The Hand Has Five Fingers, John Heartfield, 1928 This volume highlights the work of six influential European artists who took this idea into the wider world, where it merged enthusiastically with demands in the industrial marketplace, the nascent mass media, and urban popular culture. It’s something of a miracle that we can even see John Heartfield’s revolutionary art today. In the dead of night, on 14 April 1933, he was hastily packing up his artwork when he heard the Nazi SS breaking into his studio. They had come to destroy the artist and his art. Heartfield was a prominent and powerful opponent of fascism. His artwork, which exposed the brutalities and mocked the pretensions of the Nazis, appeared on the front covers of the Worker’s Illustrated Journal ( Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung). It was a popular publication, with a weekly print run of 500,000. Heartfield had no time to lose. He opened the windows, jumped off his balcony (spraining his ankle) and hid in a bin that, according to David King, ‘displayed some enamel signs, the sort that advertise motor oil, or soap, or an aperitif’. It’s an absurd image that recalls Heartfield’s own concern with juxtaposition. The Nazis destroyed the art in the studio, but Heartfield, who hid inside that bin for seven hours, escaped. He made it to Czechoslovakia where he immediately commenced his onslaught on the Nazis. He was now number 5 on the Gestapo’s most-wanted list. John Heartfield developed his art and politics in response to the horror of the First World War. Born Helmut Herzfeld, he adopted the English-sounding ‘John Heartfield’ as a reaction to the xenophobia stirred up by the German ruling elite during the war. He also got out of serving in the army by feigning mental illness. The intolerable experience of the First World War produced revolutionary conclusions. There were strikes, mutinies, and uprisings across Europe as working people realised that it was only by taking action against their own ruling class that they could stop the slaughter.
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