chologization is most apparent in Seiwert’ssystematic exploration of types,
groups,masses, and multitudes and his visual allusionsto the models, casts,
and prototypesfound in industrial production. These constructivist elements,
which, in the imagination ofafullyrationalizedsociety,drawonthe world-
building powers ofgeometry,could beread asacomment on the completede-
termination of individuals by social structures and economic conditions.Howev-
er,the rejection of psychological explanations and compensations should not be
confused with lack of emotion, whether in the mode, form, or content of repre-
sentation. On the contrary,Seiwert’srefusalofpsychological interiority attests to
an acuteawareness of the limits of bourgeois individualism in capturingthe con-
ditionsunder which the workers are, in fact,constituted asafaceless mass; this
is thereason for themany images of man-machinesand war-wounded. Moresig-
nificantly, the implicit critique of psychologyasideologyopens up the world of
emotionstoward the possibility of solidarity within the workingclass.Under
such conditions, the formal choices of type and serialization must be read not
as symptoms of loss of individualitybut as conduits to the greater power of com-
munity and collectivity.
Seiwert’sdeclaration that“proletarian culture is the intensification of the
life ofallpeople”¹⁸not onlyannounces his identification with the workers but
also affirms his belief in theirdesignated role as the embodiment of humankind.
These positions werenot just intellectual ones grounded in his readingofkey
socialist and anarchist texts.Seiwert’saffinitywith the workingclass as the suf-
fering class had strongbiographical elements; the same could be saidabout
Hoerle.Both men experienced debilitating illnessesaschildren, Seiwert after
afailedX-raytreatment that left him with seeping wounds and led to his early
death at thirty-nine,and Hoerle through recurringbouts of tuberculosis to
which he succumbed at the ageofforty.
The urgent tone in Seiwert’swritingssuggests that intensification meantnot
onlythe above-mentionedtransformation of sufferinginto solidarity and of em-
pathyinto solidarity,but also included the kind of destructive energies associat-
ed more typicallywith John Heartfield. In several articles, Seiwert denounced the
art market as an extension of capitalist society,predicted the disappearance of
professional artists in communist society,and speculated on the inevitable
transformation of art intoapublicgood. He was greatlyinspired by the writings
of GustavLandauer and shared his religiousmysticismand anarchist insurrec-
FranzWilhelm Seiwert,“Aufbauder proletarischenKultur,”DieAktion10.51/52(1920): 721.
Foracomparison, see Herbert Anger’sRevolutionon the cover ofDieAktion9.45/46(1919) or
ConradFelixmüller’sEs lebe dieWeltrevolutionon the coverofDieAktion10.17/18 (1920).
216 Chapter11