SPOTLIGHT: Marge Monko

You I, acrylic wall text. Installation view in HISK final show
HISK Laureates 2014 final show, 21.11 - 15.12.2014, Ghent, Belgium

Hi all, today I thought I'd share one of my favourite artists with you - Marge Monko.

Monko is a contemporary artist from Estonia who's work deals with anything from feminism to labour issues to the changes in Estonian society brought about by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

To elaborate, Monko's work mainly deals with the changes from communism to capitalism in Estonian society and the subject of women’s work and its compensation, alongside issues of labour – both labour as such and labour in connection to class, nationality and gender. Using those ideas, she also focuses on the history of the textiles industry and its working conditions which serve as a base for discussions on the previously mentioned topics. In the exhibition catalogue for Monko’s exhibition, How to Wear Red, Rainer Fuchs describes Monko as an artist who serves as a critical interpreter of contrary ideologies and social systems, who highlights the discontinuities between the collective approach to life and work in the communist past and the careerist individualism of present-day neoliberalism, while also looking at their causal and sometimes fatal interconnections.

Fuchs also says that “a basic conviction of [her] work is that current situations and conflicts can be better understood and even anticipated in light of their historical origins […] This applies both to the artist’s depiction of post-communist developments in Eastern Europe and to her interest in contemporary situations and their historical roots in other geopolitical contexts.” Which, in Layman's terms, means that she intertwines current issues with historical events in her artwork.

Forum, 15 min & 8 min 38 sec, 2009

You can really see this a video piece of hers called Forum. Forum is a video artwork where the Monko has restaged an Estonian national television programme called Forum, in which Estonian politicians debated a new employment contract law. The video is in two parts - in the first the hired amateur actresses who used to be employees of Kreenholm factory (a textile factory based in Narva, Estonia, now bankrupt) took on the roles of he politicians. In the second, they talked about their own experiences with finding employment. In the words of Fuchs, "because they both restage an already historical case study in neoliberal logic and also speak about their own concrete situation today, these women actualize historical consequences, or the interference between history and present life, as a political continuum." 

This aforementioned intertwining of past and present is also prevalent in her work Bluestockings, Redstockings, No Stockings (2012/14). 

Calze e Collants, 2012/14, plexiglass, approx. 112 x 74 cm

Bluestockings, Redstockings, No Stockings, Installation view from the exhibition Telling Tales, Kumu Art Museum

One of my favourite works by Monko is Nora's Sisters (2009). In this video work, she has used pictures found in the archive of Kreenholm factory in combination with a play by Elfriede Jelinek called What Happened when Nora Left her Husband, or The Pillars of Society. The play is inspired by Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House and it picks up where Ibsen left off - when Nora left her husband and children. What Happened when Nora Left her Husband mainly talks about the issues of gender politics in a capitalist society. 

Nora's Sisters, 2009

What accompanies the pictures is scene fifteen, in which Nora warns the workers of a textile factory of its imminent closure. There is a parallel with Kreenholm, which went bankrupt in 2010, although the play takes place forty years earlier. The contrast between the aesthetic optimism of the propaganda present in the photographs and the closure of factories in post-industrial Europe results in an allegorization of the predicament of women's emancipation in relation to the restructuring of industry under capitalism. 

Monko states the relationship between Nora's Sisters and Forum in an interview with Rael Artel:

The relationship between the video 'Nora's Sisters' and the bourgeois woman is very direct. Nora, the protagonist of Jelinek's play, who in turn is inspired by Ibsen's heroine bearing the same name, deserts her bourgeois home - a "doll's house" - and begins working in a factory. In the video 'Forum', this woman is sitting at the table and discussing not only her own situation but the general problems linked to the politics of employment.

Furthermore, on the topic of women in the workforce, Monko makes the case of the Western economy idealising extreme flexibility - how people are expected to be ready to change their place of employment and their position. This contradicts the ideas of femininity that are put in place by the patriarchy, as women are expected to have a family. Monko poses a very interesting question of how can this constant mobility relating to employment be associated with raising children, which requires stability and a sense of security; additionally making a point that women are more vulnerable when it comes to work, because "one cannot be flexible when one has children."

Studies of Bourgeoisie, a series of photographs executed around 2004-2006, is one of my favourite pieces of work by her. On her website, she describes this series of photographs as "inspired by 19th-century studies on hysteria of which the most well known are the photographs taken in the hospital of Salpêtrière in Paris and case histories written by Sigmund Freud. The series consists of two parts – of interior views of rooms associated with hysteria like Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna as well as the Hospital of Salpêtrière, and of staged photos linked to treatments of hysteria, for instance, Charcot's douche and hypnosis."

Monko writes that the roots of hysteria lied in the taboos of bourgeoisie society. A big majority of patiens who were diagnosed with hysteria were female, which she says is not surprising due to the narrowly defined gender roles of the time.

She also makes a good argument of the visual representation of the "hysteric female", saying that the Surrealists adapted the imagery, ignoring the human suffering and considering them to be supreme manifestations of the unconscious. The images that were once used in medicine were now taken up by the avant-garde. Today, Monko states, we see the images of convulsive and mysterious female appearing in high-fashion advertisements - a convention that is very much relying on Surrealist legacy.

Exhibition view. Finnish Museum of Photography, 2007

Tableaux III

Bourgeoisie

Vienna, Freud Museum I

Paris, Library of Charcot I

Douche Charcot I

Attitudes, slide projection of 80 slides. Exhibition view

The themes I have mainly looked at revolve around feminism. Monko's works also have underlying tones of criticism of capitalism, and can be interpreted as a negative reaction against the structures of such economic models. However, it can be said that the artwork exists separate from the rest of the Western art canon as the themes of the change from communism to capitalism and the issues of labour in post-communist society seem to be individual to just Eastern Europe alone. I also encountered problems with finding material to talk about Marge Monko and her artworks, which have lead me to believe is because of Monko’s geographical location as an Estonian artist and the fact that she is just simply not that popular.

Overall, when looking at Monko’s oeuvre in general, one can conclude that it has been subjected to the enduring legacy of conceptual art, mainly the sub-genre of feminist art. It has borrowed elements of feminism and institutional critique which add to its potency of being a politically significant artwork which is relevant in society today as it may have been forty years ago.

To see more of her artwork, check out her website here: http://www.margemonko.com/

Sources to be added at a later date!

Thank you for reading!

~

Sources and further reading:

How to Wear Red. Exhibition catalogue by Rainer Fuchs et al., Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013

Robbinson, H. (ed.) Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology 1968-2000, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2001

Molesworth, H., ‘House Work and Art Work,’ October, Vol. 92, No. 1, Spring 2000, pp. 71-97

Dimitrakaki, A., Skelton, P., Tralla, M. (eds.) Private Views: Spaces and Gender in Contemporary Art from Britian to Estonia, London: Women’s Art Library, 2000

Heartney, E., Posner, H., Princenthal, N., Scott, S. (eds.) The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millenium, London: Prestel, 2013

Economy Exhibition catalogue entry for Marge Monko’s video, Shaken Not Stirred (2012) [Online], http://economyexhibition.stills.org/artists/marge-monko/ [6 January 2015]

Manifesta 9 catalogue entry for Marge Monko [Online], http://catalog.manifesta9.org/en/monko-marge/ [6 January 2015]

Kim Charnley, “Feminism and Conceptual Art,” lecture at University of Plymouth, 22 October 2014

NOTE: this post is a rewrite of an essay.

Updates!

Hi all, I thought I'd just briefly mention what is going on at the minute in my life...

I haven't been posting a lot because 1- I'm currently working and I feel like I don't really have much time to write and 2- I don't get motivated easily...

I am in the middle of writing a post, though I keep abandoning it because I'm so tired all the time! Winter can go suck a fuck.

BUT! I do have some news, I'm currently in the process of applying for an MA in art history (not going to say which university though...!) aaaaand I've also been asked to write something for a podcast! Exciting stuff! More details on the podcast soon, I promise!

I hope you all have a lovely day/night wherever you are :)

Museum Visit: Portraits From the Museum Collection and Gerard Richter at the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

I haven't written anything on this blog for ages now due to a creative slump, so I decided this morning that I will pop to the museum in town, see what they have going on and make a quick post talking about the exhibitions on show.

I first went into the room which contained In the Frame: Plymouth's Portraits Revealed. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it was a typical exhibition focusing on portraiture and different forms of it. It was a pleasant experience, even if I didn't particularly learn anything new. The room itself was empty and I enjoyed a couple of minutes of solitude as I quietly shuffled around the space before two people came in and started loudly talking...

I have no special remarks written down about the exhibition - There were some opportunities for public interaction, which is cool, and I did think that the 'blue wall' was quite nice to look at, as you could look at the paintings individually and then step back and appreciate them together from a distance. Also, some of the paintings I have seen in exhibitions in the past, which implies that the museum collection is rather small and the staff do not have a lot to work with; however I do appreciate the effort to educate the people of Plymouth of portraiture and really get the collection out there. 

I then went on to have a look at the Gehrard Richter exhibition - ARTIST ROOMS: Gerhard Richter.

Abstract Painting (809-3) by Gerhard Richter
oil paint on canvas, 1994

The show has come to Plymouth as a part of ARTIST ROOMS On Tour which has been organized by Tate. The exhibition "explores his approach to making paintings - where imprecision, uncertainty and chance are as important to the process as composition, imagery and technique. [It] includes one of only four photographic sets in the world based on the series of original paintings Richter contributed to the 1972 Venice Biennale, 48 Portraits. This is shown alongside several other significant works that reveal his diverse practice, from portrait painting to more abstract images, photographs and prints."

48 Portraits by Gerhard Richter
48 photographs, black and white, on paper between Perspex and aluminium board, 1971-98

Abstract Painting (Silicate) (880-4) by Gerhard Richter
oil painting on aluminium, 1991

I quite enjoyed this one, albeit it being a very small exhibition (it was all contained in one single room). There was an interesting combination of music and art which I haven't experienced before in terms of exhibiting; Of course there are installations which combine art practice and music but this was different, as the music played in the exhibition space is separate from the artworks by Richter. It all came together as one as a sort of pseudo Gesamtkunstwerk and I found myself having the experience of looking at art heightened by music at the same time. The music, however, after 10 minutes or so, became slightly distressing and I kind of wanted to make a swift exit so I didn't spend a lot of time looking around - although it did raise some questions about music and art, e.g. would the experience of observing art be improved if all art museums played music in their gallery spaces? What kind of music would be the best, does it have to match the years the art was made in, and does the subject matter of the music have to match the artworks? What about lyrics? And so on, and so on...

There were also extended labels available for people to read and a student response booklet/leaflet/? by students of Plymouth uni and art college, which I thought was pretty cool as well.

There was also an exhibition about the connections of Plymouth and Fiji, and it included a lot of artifacts from Fiji which, well, I'm not completely comfortable with as I would rather the museum repatriate the objects where they have come from... But that's a massive topic in of itself and this post isn't the right place to discuss it.

That is all for this blog post, I have been slowly putting together a plan for a series on Estonian woman artists, so watch this space! In the mean time I might be writing a post or two on random topics just to keep boredom at bay.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• ARTIST ROOMS: Gerhard Richter in Plymouth
• Gerhard Richter's artist's biography on the Tate website
• In the Frame: Plymouth's Portraits Revealed on the PCMAG website
• Blog posts about the research and development of the In the Frame exhibition

Hands and Feet of Duchesses: Bouguereau and the Idealization of the French Peasant

William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) was a French Academic painter who was a prominent figure in the Salon. He painted a lot of mythological, religious and allegorical pictures which was typical of academic painters of the time. The smooth, neoclassical finish of his paintings and his expert rendition of human flesh had earned him a lot of prizes in his lifetime - he obtained the first Grand Prix de Rome and a scholarship at the Villa de Medici in Rome in 1850, at just the age of 25. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1859 and a member of the Académie de Beaux-Arts and Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1876. He was also appointed a professor at the École de Beaux-Arts in 1888 and made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1902.

The Virgin with Angels by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1900

The Birth of Venus by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1879

Portrait of Elizabeth Jane Gardner by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1879

Throughout Bouguereau's career, the world saw the greatest explosion of styles, subjects and experimentation in all of art history including expansion and development both technically and thematically that had ever occurred before since the Enlightenment. The great Academic painters of the 19th century (Cabanel, Gérôme, Alma-Tadema, etc.) were all pushed aside by the new Modernist theory. Bouguereau's painting style and subject matter was everything the Impressionists and Realists loathed. His name became somewhat of a joke, as Degas and his Impressionist friends called very smoothly finished academic paintings "Bouguerated". Van Gogh also disliked Bouguereau. In a letter he wrote to his brother Theo in August 1888 he said that "if we painted like Bouguereau people wouldn't be ashamed to let themselves be painted," and "if we painted like Bouguereau, that we could then hope to earn."

It comes as no surprise that after Bouguereau's death in 1905, the popularity of his work suffered a steep decline due to the rise of the new Avant-Garde ideas and art movements in the early 20th century. His work was considered kitsch and untasteful, and only after the 1970s did it become 'acceptable' to appreciate his works once again.


One genre of painting that Bouguereau was praised for were paintings of peasants. During the aforementioned explosion of styles, subjects and experimentation was a rise of the genre of peasant paintings and changes in attitudes towards them. At first, they were simple, idyllic pictures with strong religious or moral undertones, but the French Revolution of 1848 brought about a change in how people treated peasants and how they were represented in art.

The Milkmaid by Greuze (1725-1805)
oil on canvas, 1780-4?

The Shepherdess by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)
oil on canvas, ca. 1750-2

Artists like Millet, Bastien-Lepage and Courbet painted peasants as realistically as possible, warts and all. Many paintings representative of rural life were painted without idyllic and pastoral associations as paintings of peasants became more relevant to modern life. 

October by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884)
oil on canvas, 1878

The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
oil on canvas, 1857

The Stone Breakers by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
oil on canvas, 1849

Although a lot of artists preferred to depict the gritty reality of rural life, grand paintings of mythological and historical scenes were still more popular in the Salon. As time went on however, more academic painters had started to depict peasants and the countryside in their art. What begun as a resistance against the Academic style was now a popular and socially acceptable genre. The characteristics of rural life that been thought of expressions of the peasants' victimization were now gone and transformed into civic qualities which was hoped that the urban poor would emulate. 

Rest by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1879

A Fisherman's Daughter by Jules Breton (1827-1906)
oil on canvas, 1878

Thus, the appearance of the peasant in artworks by Academic painters changes yet again. For example, Rest by Bouguereau and A Fisherman's Daughter by Jules Breton are complete opposites to the works of Courbet who made an effort to duplicate the hard life of the peasant on the canvas.

On the ArtRenewalCenter website, in an entry for Rest, Kara Ross writes;

"Though the family depicted in this scene is poor, one can tell that they understand that money does not necessarily buy happiness. The mother tenderly holds her baby with her older son asleep at her feet indicating the joy and peace that can be found in everyday family life and in motherhood. The mother gazes out at her viewers as if to ask how she could possibly need more then she already has, her greatest treasures lying in her arms and at her feet. Bouguereau was a deeply religious man, and the church in the background symbolizes that God rules over the rich as well as the poor, and that all people are children of God and equal in His eyes."

This interpretation of the painting is correct to a certain point, however it completely ignores the fact that the image Bouguereau has produced is an idealized version of the real-life peasant which has sugar-coated the aspects of being a part of the working class. "Money does not necessarily buy happiness": Indeed it may not, but it does buy necessary things one may need to survive and have a comfortable life which can contribute to happiness. 

The Shepherdess by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1889

The Shepherdess by Bouguereau is also a very idealized image of the peasant. The painting depicts a young girl with dark hair in front of a vast landscape, with grazing cattle in a field behind her. It has a peaceful, idyllic atmosphere. She has good posture which makes her look confident, and the hilly landscape behind her and the raised foreground makes it look like she is looking down on the viewer.

Children were a favourite of Bouguereau's to paint. He had young girls from Brittany pose for him in his garden in La Rochelle, calling those paintings either "Little Shepherdess", or "Little Beggar" - whatever he felt like at the time and what kind of a 'vibe' he was getting from the sitter.

Although these 'shepherdesses' and 'beggars' were dressed in simple peasant clothes and didn't wear any shoes, as Louis Sonolet wrote, "they have the hands and feet of Duchesses", which rings true as the skin of the peasants in Bouguereau's painting look too pure, their feet too clean, their hands too smooth, their faces young and free of any signs of a hard life, and their clothes look too fresh, as if they are being worn for the first time. Sonolet also stated that Bouguereau "Never tried either exactly to represent the characters before him or to reproduce the types of a certain class. He made for himself an abstract image of beautiful forms, completely independent, so to speak, of anything that could affect or modify it. In his way of rendering nature a considerable part of it is purely subjective. He never stops with things exactly as they are. He cannot help idealizing all the touches." Bouguereau indeed could not help 'idealizing all the touches', as in an article by Eugene Tardieu he said that "in painting, I am an idealist. I only see the beautiful in art and, for me, art is the beautiful. Why reproduce the ugly things that exist in nature? I see absolutely no need for it, unless it can be done by someone who is immensely talented."

Anyhow, many painters chose children as their subjects, skirting social issues and sugar-coating the hardships of rural life. By choosing children to be the protagonists of their paintings made the works more acceptable to be hung in the homes of the middle and upper classes, as the vulnerable and charming little kids made no overt demands for help and sweeping political reform. These kinds of pictures fit into the sentimental and anecdotal taste of the period.

Shepherds and shepherdesses were also popular subject matters, it’s said that they were regarded as more respectable members of the society. Certain shepherds acquired some sort of a heroic status and had an aura of respectability about them.

The Little Beggar by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1880

A lot of academic artists who painted peasants painted unrealistic representations of rural life. They were biased by many preconceived ideas derived from their social background, training and what was popular with the critics and patrons. These paintings were painted by the upper classes, for the upper classes. They didn’t want a dirty peasant cowering in a field; they wanted a beautiful woman standing in a field, much like paintings from past centuries where French aristocrats were seen play-acting at being shepherds or their mistresses “merry-making” as milkmaids. The artist was chasing the peasant but couldn’t catch them, instead he got his shadow.

The Dancing Milk Maids by Francis Hayman (1708-1776)
oil on canvas, ca.1735

The Harvester by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1868

Being from a wealthier background, artists were also able to travel around the world to seek inspiration. As mentioned earlier, Bouguereau was awarded a scholarship in Villa de Medici and the Grand Prix de Rome in 1850- meaning he studied in Italy and undertook a grand tour of Europe. In consequence it is very possible that the rural life of Italy also influenced his work, as he would’ve often made studies from life based on local peasant models.

Italy reminded the French of the classical world, so over the course of the century all manner of Italian costumes and customs also were presented to the public. For example, Bouguereau’s painting Return from the Harvest painted in 1879 has a very religious and mythological feeling to it and is the most inaccurate representation of rural life possible, as there was no French equivalent to the Italian south. These kinds of paintings are very similar to ones in the style of Orientalism, but can also represent artistic escape.

Return from the Harvest by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
oil on canvas, 1878

Linda Nochlin writes that the representation of labour in art had become “feminized” during that time, as there was a lack of ploughmen, sowers and stonebreakers. 

On one hand, the peasant became a modern goddess. More specifically, the Goddess of the harvest, Ceres. There was no sense of contemporaneity that was associated with early Realism. Paintings no longer showed the peasants as suffering victims of exploitation. 

On the other hand, the female peasant became a political symbol. Painters painted a lot of milkmaids and shepherdesses, and Nochlin stated that those kinds of paintings represented the “ideological definitions of femininity” and “the good worker”. The feminized peasant paintings acted as a sister to alternative images of the country, like Liberty, in Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. They were symbols of calm, productive labour and imagined rural stability. She, like the late Realist peasant woman, successfully encased political modernity within a cloak of “traditional values”.

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix
oil on canvas, 1830

The implied imagery of the working peasant in the role of a powerful figure could also serve as something that could empower the lower classes, however you cannot deny that Bouguereau's prerogative to sugar coat the reality of peasant life, alongside many other artists who idealized French rural life, played a bigger part in the erasure of the hardships of the lower classes and reinforcement in the upper classes of the idea that the lower classes are happy with being poor, thus releasing them of any guilt that they might be a part of a system that victimizes the poor. 

Sources

Tuffelli, N., 19th Century French Art: 1848-1905, Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2004

Glueck, G., "Art View: To Bouguereau, Art was Strictly the Beautiful", New York Times, 6 January 1985

"Bouguereau and the Real 19th Century"
https://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Philosophy/TheReal19thCentury/thereal19thcentury.php

http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/search/simple?term=bouguereau

Bezucha, R. J., "The Urban Image of the Countryside in the Late 19th Century French Painting; And Essay on Art and Political Culture", in Sturges, H,, The Rural Vision: French and America in the Late 19th  Century, Nebraska: Nebraska Press, 1982, pp. 13-21

"William Bouguereau - an Introduction by Fred Ross"
https://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2010/BouguereauIntroduction/BouguereauIntroduction.php

The French Peasant in French 19th Century Art, Exhibition Catalogue by Thompson, J., Dublin, Trinity College, 1980

Author Unknown, Bouguereau: French School, Boston: Bates and Guild, 1906, p. 416

"Bouguereau at Work"
https://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Technical_Articles/WALKER-BOUGUEREAU/WALKER-BOUGUEREAUpage1.php

Lady photographers of Weimar Germany

Hello all, I just felt like sharing some photography with you tonight.

I wrote an essay in my final year of university for my German art class on the New Woman trope in Weimar Germany and the role female photographers held in regards to it. Like usual, the essay was left to last minute (the night before the deadline) and I didn't exactly know that I was writing about female photographers until I was about half way through the essay... 

Nevertheless, I discovered some great photographers who took some beautiful pictures. Some of them have this haunting quality to them and they embody the ideals of the modern woman of the early 20th century. What I love about them is that most of the photographers I looked at took a large number of self-portraits, turning the New Woman trope upside-down. The photographers deny the man to construct a fetishized image of women living in Weimar Germany and instead, they present themselves however they want to be seen. 

GERTRUDE ARNDT (1903-2000)

Gertrude is one of my favourite photographers, being a part of the Bauhaus movement (I have a soft spot for Bauhaus). She is mostly known for her series of 43 self-portraits she took in the 1930s.
Read more about her here, here and here. 

Masked Portrait No. 34, 1930
Gertrude Arndt

Masked Portrait No. 28, 1930
Gertrude Arndt

Masked Portrait, 1930
Gertrude Arndt

Masked Portrait, 1930
Gertrude Arndt

MARTA ASTFALCK-VIETZ (1901-1994)

By far probably my most favourite photographer/artist ever, Marta's work is dark, ethereal, erotic and mesmerizing. She isn't very well known, and material on her is scarce (as I found out, sitting in the university library at 6am...), but you can still find some of her works floating around on the internet if you do a quick search of her name on Google. 

Dr Katherine Tubb recently curated a show of her works in Glasgow, which was Marta's first ever solo show outside of Germany. Tubb writes that the works show a range of personal responses to the social, political and sexual transformations of Germany after World War I. They also provide to be a good example of construction of identity.

Self Portrait No. 20, Date Unknown
Marta Astfalck-Vietz

Selbstmord in Spiritus (Suicide dans l'alcool), 1927
Marta Astfalck-Vietz

YVA (1900-1942?)

Yva was born as Else Ernestine Neuländer-Simon, and opened her own photographic studio in 1925. She established herself as one of the leading photographers in Berlin until her forced removal from public life in the late 1930s due to the ultimate intentions of Nazi racial policy.

At her most popular, she produced photos for the growing number of illustrated magazines and periodicals in circulation, like Gebrauchsgraphik and UHU. 

In 1930, she began contributing photo-stories to the magazine UHU, which were directed at the young female reader, covering many popular themes such as young women arriving in metropolitan Berlin from the countryside and their many trials and tribulations they faced on their road to stardom. These photo-stories allowed Yva to move beyond the limitations of the static photo image and produce highly competent work in an intermediary genre between photography and film. 

Self Portrait, 1926
Yva

Published by UHU, 1932
Yva

Published by UHU, 1932/3
Yva

Ca. 1930
Yva

EXTRA READING ON WOMEN ARTISTS IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

• Practicing Modernity: Female Creativity in the Weimar Republic by Christiane Schönfeld, Carmel Finnan (partly available on Google Books)
• Visions of the "Neue Frau": Women and the Visual Arts in Weimar Germany by Marsha Meskimmon, Shearer West
• We Weren't Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism by Marsha Meskimmon (partly available on Google Books)
• Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture by Katharina von Ankum (partly available on Google Books)