Room 205.04

As the First World War came to an end, the Dada group explored new forms of expression, seeking to aesthetically respond to the socioeconomic and political problems afflicting Germany: collage, manipulation, and montage of photographic fragments, combined with typographical elements, resulted in powerful photomontages that served as a political protest tool. Alongside George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch and the Russian avant-garde, the Berlin artist John Heartfield was one of the pioneers of this artistic language, and one of its most prominent figures. In the Spanish context, his work would be a powerful influence on the photomontages created by Josep Renau from the 1930s onwards.        

Encompassing the possibilities of expression and the subversive language of the new medium, Heartfield started to publish his photomontages on the covers of books from the Malik publishing house and later in magazines such as Neue Jugend, Die Pleite, Die Rote Fahne, AIZ and Die Volks Illustrierte. The force of his output, with its commitment to the proletariat struggle and its condemnation of fascism, dazzled in the profound meaning of his pieces, which refrained from any desire to suggest an illusion of reality — his photomontages overtly revealed the processes inherent in their production, leaving exposed tears in the photographs and traces of scissor cuts. The portfolio entitled John Heartfield. 33 Fotomontagen (John Heartfield. 33 Photomontages) was published six years after his death with a view to compiling the most representative works in his combative career and to grant them wider international circulation.