description of Heartfield’sphotographic practice as“an emotionalrather than a
rational means of communication.”⁹Establishinghis public persona asaDada
artist,anearlyself-portrait from 1920 features the artist in profile, with sharp,
tight facial features and his handsraised plaintively (see figure17.4). Eerilyrem-
iniscent of laterportraits of Nazi propagandaministerJoseph Goebbels, his self-
representation combines aspects of the figure of the angry artist with that of the
skilled agitator.¹⁰Asecond self-portrait appears as part ofaphotomontage inAIZ
- 37 (1929) togetherwith the command to“Use PhotographyasaWeapon”(see
figure17.5). Significantly, Heartfield inserts himself into the picture frame in
order to completethe transition from political artist to activist.Heliterally
cuts off the head of SPDpolicecommissioner Zörgiebel and, in so doing,dem-
onstrateshow aprimal emotioncan be translated into an artistic technique and
how the latter,inturn, can give rise toarevolutionary movement.Emphasizing
this connection,Franz CarlWeiskopf, in the accompanying text,describes Heart-
field’scutting as“aweapon in the struggle foranew,truly humane society
wherethe workers are able not justtosatisfy their hunger for bread but for cul-
ture and art as well.”¹¹
By the end of the industrial revolution, hands had becomeaconvenient
shorthand in visual representations of modernindustry,technology,capitalism,
and the workingclass.¹²Newmass movements, includingthe workers’move-
Andrés Mario Zervigón,John Heartfield and the Agitated Image:Photography,Persuasion, and
the Rise ofAvant-gardePhotomontage(Chicago:University of Chicago Press,2012),6.
In this earlyDada self-portrait,Heartfield not onlylooks uncannilylike Goebbels;his expres-
sive handgestures also resemble the oratorical poses developed by Hitler in collaboration with
his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann.Foraclose reading of the later image,see Sabine
Kriebel,“Jo hn Heartfields Selbstporträtvon1929,”inJohn Heartfield: ZeitausschnitteFotomonta-
gen1918– 1938 ,ed. FreyaMülhaupt(Ostfildern: Hatje Canz,2009), 64–73.Interestingly,the
poster for Helmut Herbst’sfilm essayJohn HeartfieldFotomonteur(1977) also features images
of hands with and without scissors in different positions.
The occasion for the publicationinAIZwas an articleabout the 1929 GreaterBerlin Art Ex-
hibition.
Foradiscussion of the rich symbolism of the clenched fist,see GottfriedKorff,“RoteFahnen
undgeballteFaust.Zur Symbolik der Arbeiterbewegung in derWeimarer Republik,”inFahnen,
Fäuste, Körper.Symbolik und Kulturder Arbeiterbewegung,ed. Dietmar Petzina (Essen: Klartext,
1986), 27 – 60.Korff links these symbolsto the experience of loss of utopia, with(pseudo)reli-
gious imagesand ideas replaced by concretepolitical programs.For the continuities between
Communist and Nazi uses of the fist asapolitical symbol, see Sherwin Simmons,“‘Handto
the Friend, Fist to theFoe’:The Struggle of Signs in theWeimar Republic,”Journal of Design His-
tory13.4 (2000): 319–339. Foracomparative history of the fist in the largercontext oftotalitarian
politics,also see Steven Heller,Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-CenturyTotalitarian State(London:
Phaidon,2008).
308 Chapter 17