even Durus declared montagea“Marxist method of artistic creation”ideallysuit-
ed for uncovering the contradictions in social reality.Indeed, his advice to pho-
tomonteurs,“to hammerthe truth into people’sbrains over and over again–the
truth of exploitation, of the degrading capitalist system, of the conditions of the
liberation of the proletariat–and thus to agitateand propagandize the masses
as effectivelyaswepossiblycan”¹⁹readsvery much likeadescription of Heart-
field’sown use of hands, often in combination withtools, in unleashing the
emotional forces of class struggle.
Five Fingersis atypicalexample of Heartfield’swork for the KPD,but it does
not fit easilyinto prevailing views of photomontageasaform of resistanceand
an exercise in dissent. As apropagandist for the KPD, Heartfieldobviouslycould
not draw on the corrosive forceofbitingsatire and absurdist humor that animat-
ed his famous antifascistphotomontagesand inspired what art historian Sabine
Kriebelappropriatelycalls“left-winglaughter.”HisKPD allegiances have been
impossibleto i gnore ever since SergeiTretyakov,inthe first monograph on the
artist,declaredthat,“his photomontagescannot be separated from his party
work. In fact,they areahistory of the Communist Party of Germany.”²⁰Amem-
ber of the KPD since the dayofits founding on 30 December 1918, Heartfield con-
tinues to this daytocause methodological problems because of the constitutive
tension in hisWeimar-era work between political dogmatism and artistic inno-
vation.It is easyto claim his antifascist photomontagesfor the cause of demo-
craticmodernism and to celebrate his modernist montageascritical interven-
tion; it is much more difficult to draw the sameconclusions about the
antidemocratic positions in his work for the KPD.Ifphotomontages are indeed
forms of assault–sharp shots, inTretyakov’sphrase–what can be concluded
about theirintended targets and effects?Morespecifically, what does Heartfield’s
productive rage suggest about the role of emotions in the making of proletarian
identifications?
These questions requiresome critical reassessment of what Kriebel describes
as the contested status of photomontage as atechnique of either rupture (i.e.,
the standard interpretation) or suture,aterm adapted from Lacanian-inspired
Durus [i.e., AlfredKemény],“Photomontage, Photogram,”trans.JoelAgee, inPhotography
in theModern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings,1913– 1940 ,ed. Christopher Phil-
lips (NewYork: Metropolitan Museum of Art,1989), 184.For alater argument on the affinity be-
tween photomontage and proletarian identifications,see EckhardSiepmann,“Washat das Pro-
letariat mit derFotografie, dieFotografie mit der Montage und die Montage mit dem Proletariat
zu tun?,”inPolitischeFotomontage,ed. JürgenHoltfreter (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1971), 25–33.
Tretyakov,citedinHerzfelde,John Heartfield,332. Interestingly,Tretyakov’sbook also fea-
turesFive Fingerson its cover.
312 Chapter 17