By the early1930s, allegory once again offered itself as the aesthetic modal-
ity best suited for reconcilingsocial reality and ideological fantasy whilemain-
taining the emotional intensity that in the late 1910s had initiallybrought Heart-
field to Dada Berlin.The rhetorics of allegory signaledaretreat from the
referentiality of photographyand addedyetanother layerofmeaningtothe in-
dexicalityofhands. In several photomontagesmade for the Association of the
Friends of the NewRussia, the hammerand sickle are no longer just workers’
tools;the material objects are now reduced to communist symbols. Similarly,
the hands holding these objectsnolonger belongto amale worker orafemale
peasant but to the disembodied standard bearers of world communism as de-
fined by the Comintern. These allegorical tendencies became evenmore pro-
nounced after the defeat of theKPDin1933and the projection of all hopes for
revolution onto the Soviet Union,aprocess that aligned Heartfield’svisual lan-
guageevenmore closelywith that of Klutsis.His cover for“ANew Year!”AIZ9.52
(1930) still refers to the material world of labor and industry–the steel is forged
Fig..John Heartfield,“Alle Fäuste zu einer
geballt/All FistsClenched intoOne,”AIZ.
(), photomontage, cover image.Copyright
The HeartfieldCommunity of Heirs/Ar-
tists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork/VGBild-
Kunst Bonn.
Fig..Gustav Klutsis,“Workers!Everyone
MustVote in the Election of Soviets” (),
photomontage, The ArtInstituteofChicago.
CopyrightEstateofGustavKlutsis Artists
Rights Society (ARS), NewYork.316 Chapter 17