Montage: Activity 2

Find two examples of political photomontages that are either from a historical or contemporary source. 

Discuss in what context they have been produced and how effective you think they communicate their intended message. 

Discuss the techniques that have been used to assemble the examples you have chosen and offer alternative ways that the artist could have put over the same message.

Museum Ludwig: Marenus, Drahtseilakt, Paris 1940

           This image was created in 1940, in the midst of the second world war. We see balancing on a tightrope Hitler and two of his followers, one on the other's back. This balancing act that is portrayed most likely symbolizes the tedious and comical attempt at world domination or at least world control by these dictators, which is a very easy message to understand; their walking on a tightrope shows tediousness with what they are doing and the expressions on their faces and positioning of their bodies adds to the effect. In addition to the tightrope, the bed of swords underneath them most likely represents their opponents and the consequences of their success and their failure. Marenus composed this picture by taking separate images of each man and layering them on top of one another, then used an image of a man on a tightrope to get the rope (he eliminated the man/woman) and then he took another image of swords or bayonets being raised in the air. It is likely that he also had a separate image for the barbell/balancing stick the bottom Nazi is holding. Using a similar concept, Marenus could have used another element from the circus such as a unicycle to convey the same message.

Defended to Death, Peter Kennard

           This image was produced during the Cold War, a war in which the Soviet Union and the United States had a suspenseful yet uneventful nuclear scare. Here we see an old-fashioned gas mask secured on Earth which acts as the face of a man, one eye with the American flag and the other with the Soviet/Communist flag (symbolizing the two enemies), and the mouthpiece of the mask being stuffed with nuclear missiles. Pretty straightforward. A composition of approximately five images (the globe, the mask, each flag, and missiles) Kennard used techniques such as layering to place each image in the appropriate place to convey the desired message, which is the toxicity of the Cold War and the hazards it would incur or was incurring already. I cannot think of an alternative means to clearly convey the same message.