A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - Pages of History No. 98 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Propaganda through Montage... ---- The new exhibition at La 
Contemporaine, along with its accompanying catalog, and the joint 
publication of research on propaganda through photomontage, provide a 
perspective on major developments in the art of mass communication 
between the two wars. ---- Max Bonhomme's book explores the birth and 
development of photomontage in five dense chapters. Born in advertising 
circles, it was used from the early 20th century to promote the tourist 
attractions of Paris, for example. Its medium then relied primarily on 
postcards. Subsequently, the news magazine Vu attempted to narrate 
events using this technique. It was also popular with police 
investigative journalism, which did the same with major cases. While 
they spread rapidly in France, these techniques were particularly widely 
used in the so-called avant-garde artistic circles of Germany and the 
USSR. Max Bonhomme points out that one of the central players in this 
new use of images was International Workers' Relief, the organization 
founded by the Comintern to help victims of famine in the USSR. Its 
founder, the German communist Willy Münzenberg, quickly used the 
organization to make propaganda films in favor of the USSR and create 
several companies dedicated to using images for this purpose. The 
newspaper, Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeintung (Workers' Illustrated 
Newspaper), enjoyed success beyond the spheres of influence of communist 
circles. An exact copy of the techniques used in Germany was developed 
in France. For example, the front pages of the communist newspaper Nos 
regards copied those of the AIZ. The Münzenberg network also imported 
Soviet photomontages. The posters of Klucis and Senkin stand out for 
their ability to innovate and renew propaganda themes. Thus, New Russia 
and then The Call of the Soviets (in both French and German) broke with 
the traditional canons of posters and covers and renewed the genre. The 
Association of Revolutionary Artists and Writers founded in the wake of 
the French Communist Party is another illustration of this, as the Willy 
Ronis poster reproduced in the book highlights both artistic research 
and the implementation of a new form of propaganda.
The author then details the techniques implemented and the recurring 
themes used. We find the classics of the communist imagination: 
industrial imagination reproduced either to denounce capitalist 
countries or to promote the USSR, visual diversion, reverse shot. The 
press then used cinematic means to create an impression of movement and 
consequently set the crowds in motion. These innovative techniques rely 
on contrasting visual temporalities to demonstrate the opposition 
between communist good and capitalist evil, the crowd on one side and 
the people on the other, the oppressors. These propaganda visuals were 
displayed on a large scale at the 1937 World's Fair, and all regimes 
eventually drew inspiration from them, as demonstrated by the propaganda 
poster created by the French state in 1943.

Max Bonhomme is one of the masterminds of the exhibition, which opens at 
the Contemporaine on November 19, 2025. The catalog and exhibition give 
ample space to its principal author, John Heartfield. This former 
Dadaist turned communist was one of the main promoters of the movement. 
It was he who, for example, created the KPD's propaganda posters. A 
refugee in England, he ended his career in East Germany after World War 
II. The exhibition curators then gave ample space to collages from the 
USSR or glorifying its image, as demonstrated by the abundant 
illustrations from the communist press. They also emphasize that 
photomontage became a symbolic battleground between the various forms of 
totalitarian propaganda. Although it disappeared after the Second World 
War, it enjoyed a second life in the 1960s and 1970s before being 
definitively abandoned in the era of digital image transformation.

Graphic Propaganda
Max Bonhomme
Éditions de la Sorbonne 2025 378 p. EUR29

Cut and paste print
Max Bonhomme and Aline Théret
Anamosa/La contemporaine 2025 258 p. EUR35

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