Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany Has All the Intellectual Makings of Becoming a Major Go-To and Reference for Wei- Mar Culture Studies Written in English
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Revised Pages The Chatter of the Visible Revised Pages “The Chatter of the Visible: Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany has all the intellectual makings of becoming a major go- to and reference for Wei- mar culture studies written in English. It is one of the theoretically most ac- complished studies in that field, which will simultaneously fulfill a comple- mentary need for more historically oriented scholarly work in the area and era. This is the case for literary scholarship as well as for culture and visual studies, to all of which this book is of eminent importance.” — Rainer Rumold, Northwestern University “Patrizia McBride’s seminal study examines the relationship between mon- tage and narrative in Weimar Germany. In its masterful analyses, the book provides a detailed presentation of the various facets of montage narratives as an interface of technology, perception, and materiality. In doing so, it devel- ops a theory of narrative that spans different media and discourses and is thus pathbreaking for Literary Studies oriented toward the history of knowledge and media studies.” — Elisabeth Strowick, Johns Hopkins University “Patrizia McBride’s study impressively complexifies our understanding of montage. Without simply rejecting its modernist conceptualizations as a pri- marily antinarrative force of rupture, the readings presented show how in response to the contemporary crisis of narrative sensemaking, Weimar au- thors and artists profiled montage as an innovative, phenomenological means of narration.” — Claudia Breger, Indiana University “Reconstructing the complex ecology of old genres and new media in the interwar years, McBride develops a striking vision of montage as a practice of storytelling native to the modern technological surround. Against one-side d interpretations of montage as a strategy of deconstruction and protest, The Chatter of the Visible reminds us that every montage cut also entails a suture, and that political interventions can be found not just in critique but in con- nection and correspondence as well.” — Devin Fore, Princeton University “This is by far the best book written on the topic of montage and narrative in Weimar culture so far. It establishes historical and theoretical parameters one will have to work with in the future. McBride states that the aesthetic means of montage appeared as a most fitting correlate to the multiple traumas wo- ven into the historical fabric of Weimar Germany.” — Paul Michael Lutzeler, Washington University Revised Pages The Chatter of the Visible Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany Patrizia C. McBride University of Michigan Press • Ann Arbor Revised Pages Copyright © 2016 by Patrizia C. McBride All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: McBride, Patrizia C., author. Title: The chatter of the visible : montage and narrative in Weimar Germany / Patrizia C. McBride. Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015031993| ISBN 9780472073030 (hardcover : acid- free paper) | ISBN 9780472053032 (pbk. :acid- free paper) | ISBN 9780472121700 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Photography—Germany— History— 1918– 1933. Classification: LCC TR73 .M43 2016 | DDC 770.943— dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015031993 Revised Pages Acknowledgments I would like to thank the Humboldt Foundation for a generous grant that allowed me to spend summer 2010 conducting research at various sites in Berlin. At the Free University I am especially indebted to Peter Sprengel, whose help and advice has been invaluable in completing this project. I owe a debt of gratitude to Ralf Burmeister and Christian Tagger at the Berlinische Galerie for their support in accessing the Galerie’s holdings on Hannah Höch. I am also grateful to the staff at the Bauhaus Archiv and the Staatsbib- liothek in Berlin for their help and assistance. This side of the ocean I would like to thank Tim Shipe, curator of the International Dada Archive at the University of Iowa Libraries, for his help and kindness over the years. Special thanks also go to the anonymous readers who reviewed the book for the Uni- versity of Michigan Press. Their generous, incisive feedback was crucial in helping me sharpen central arguments in this study. Last but not least, I have tremendous gratitude for the colleagues and graduate students in the De- partment of German Studies at Cornell University. Their conversations and intellectual engagement have sustained my work in countless ways, not least by reminding me of how rewarding and fun it can be to work together on a common undertaking. Two chapters of this book have appeared in earlier versions. A shorter incarnation of chapter 5 was published as “Narrative Resemblance: Weimar Germany’s Photography and the Modernist Photobook of Hannah Höch,” New German Critique 115, 39.1 (Winter 2012): 169– 97. A version of chapter 6 appeared as “The Game of Meaning: Collage, Montage, and Parody in Kurt Schwitters’ Merz,” in MODERNISM/Modernity 14.2 (April 2007): 249–7 2. Parts of chapter 6 have also appeared in “Montage and Violence in Weimar Culture: Kurt Schwitters’ Reassembled Individuals,” in Violence, Culture, Aesthetics: Germany, 1789– 1938, ed. Carl Niekerk and Stefani Engel- Revised Pages vi • Acknowledgments stein (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011): 245– 65. I thank the publishers for grant- ing permission to include these materials. Every effort has been made to find the copyright holders of the images reproduced in this book. • I dedicate this book to Brent and Giovanni. Amori miei, grazie. Revised Pages Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1 1 • Weimar- Era Montage: Perception, Expression, Storytelling 14 2 • The Narrative Restitution of Experience: Walter Benjamin’s Storytelling 41 3 • Storytelling in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Benjamin on Film and Montage 62 4 • Narrating in Three Dimensions: László Moholy- Nagy’s “Vision in Motion” 83 5 • Narrative Resemblance and the Modernist Photobook 111 6 • Abstraction and Montage in the Work of Kurt Schwitters 148 Conclusion: Montage after Weimar 178 Notes 183 Works Cited 221 Index 231 Revised Pages Revised Pages List of Illustrations Hannah Höch, The Multi- Millionaire, in László Moholy- Nagy, Painting Photography Film (1967; 1925, 1927) 2 Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer- Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (1919). Photomontage and collage on paper 17 John Heartfield, “Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes Blind and Deaf: Away with These Stultifying Bandages!” A.I.Z. 9.6 (1930) 23 American tire advertisement, from László Moholy- Nagy, Painting Photography Film (1967; 1925, 1927) 94 László Moholy- Nagy, advertisement for a garden exhibition (1930), in Rasch and Rasch, eds., Gefesselter Blick 96 László Moholy- Nagy, first and second two-page spread from Dynamic of the Metropolis, in Painting Photography Film (1967; 1925, 1927) 100, 102 From László Moholy- Nagy, From Material to Architecture (1929) 109 Cesar Domela- Nieuwenhuis, advertisement for metal containers (1930), in Rasch and Rasch, eds., Gefesselter Blick 120 Albert Renger- Patzsch, selected photographs from 123–127, Die Welt ist schön (1928) 132–133 Hannah Höch, Deutsches Mädchen (1930). Photomontage and collage on paper 136 Page from Hannah Höch, Album (1933– 34). Photomontage 139 Two- page spread from Hannah Höch, Album (1933– 34). Photomontage 142 Two- page spread from Hannah Höch, Album (1933– 34). Photomontage 143 Revised Pages x • List of Illustrations Hannah Höch, Album, final two- page spread (1933– 34). Photograph 145 Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning (1912). Oil and mixed media 157 Kurt Schwitters, Mz 231. Miss Blanche (1923). Collage 159 Kurt Schwitters, selections from “Schacko,” in Merz 21 (1931) 166–168 Revised Pages Introduction One of the most striking pictures featured in László Moholy- Nagy’s Malerei Fotografie Film (Painting Photography Film, 1925– 27) is without a doubt Hannah Höch’s The Multi- Millionaire, from 1923. Tucked in Moholy’s exten- sive compendium of the new visual modes of expression made possible by photography and film in the first decades of the twentieth century, Höch’s photomontage has an eye- popping quality that well documents her gift for laying bare the conventions of contemporary visual media and debunking gender and class stereotypes with compositions of uncommon virtuosity and mordant wit. At first sight the image evokes an unhinged world made of in- tersecting, jagged shapes and objects. The eye of a man staring out of the picture helps to anchor the viewer’s wondering gaze. His truncated face— the image features only half of his frontal portrait— towers over an incongru- ously diminutive body clad in a formal suit. At his right- hand side another elegantly dressed man is also missing part of his head, his face appearing in an abridged profile. The men’s silhouettes, which form the image’s vertical axis, protrude out of