The Emancipatory Power of Reproductions: Neglected Narratives of Avant-Garde Photography

• In Event: Tableaux Vivants, Rubber Stamps, and X-Ray Photographs: Transformation and Emancipation in Modern Art

Abstract

In ReD, a leading illustrated magazine of the Prague interwar avant-garde, various visual materials are skillfully combined. Aerial photography, movie stills, typography and photomontages are integrated through the vision of Karel Teige, the editor of the magazine, which was published by the Devětsil group from 1927 to 1931. While Devětsil and the Czech avant-garde in general are undoubtedly well-studied topics (Pomajzlová, 2019; Švácha and Šmejkal, 1990), a perspective that addresses the material nature of image exchange (Forbes, 2025; Toman, 2009) can help us to see these reproductions anew.
The aim of this paper is to reveal the emancipatory potential of an approach rooted in the materiality of photomechanical reproductions by uncovering two different stories that converged on a double-sided page of the 1929 ReD magazine. What narratives underlie an X-ray photograph of a fish and a night photograph of fireworks? How were these images acquired for the magazine and why? By telling the specific story of these particular pictures, we aim to illuminate and “liberate” subjectivities, actors and networks that have been previously neglected by art historical narratives. As a result, we see a medical image not as an anonymous picture appropriated at some point by László Moholy-Nagy, but as produced in a laboratory for the scientific education of women in Germany. And, tracing the path of the fireworks image entails uncovering the significant presence of Aenne Biermann, a German Jewish photographer, in Czech periodicals of the late 1920s, a regular contributor who has been overlooked until now.

Authors

• Camilla Balbi, Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic)

• Hana Buddeus, Institute of Art History CAS (Czech Republic)