Jo Spence
The Highest Product of Capitalism (After John Heartfield), 1979
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
20.32 x 25.4 cms
8 x 10 ins
Series: 5. Photo Therapy Collaborations (1984-90)
10374
Further images
Provenance
Jo Spence Memorial ArchiveRichard Saltoun Gallery, London
Exhibitions
A Different Mirror. Photographs from the Hyman Collection at Photo Oxford 2021: Women & Photography - Ways of seeing and being seen, 2021 (This print)Jo Spence : from Fairy Tales to Phototherapy. Photographs from the Hyman Collection, Arnolfini Bristol, (18th May 2020 - 20th June 2021) (this print)
'Writing Her Own Script' at Photo London, Somerset House (11-14 May 2023)
Literature
Jo Spence, Putting myself in the picture: A political, personal, and photographic autobiography, 1986
Jo Spence. Collaboration with Terry Dennett Stamped on the reverse The present work is one of Spence and Dennett's most celebrated pictures. It in fact exists in slightly different formats:...
Jo Spence. Collaboration with Terry Dennett
Stamped on the reverse
The present work is one of Spence and Dennett's most celebrated pictures. It in fact exists in slightly different formats: clearly taken from more than one negative: one complete frontal, the other slightly oblique.
The work itself is a direct transcription of a work by John Heartfield. Its title is the English translation of Heartfiled's title "Spitzenprodukte des kapitalismus" and the text that Spence holds - "I'll take (almost) any work" - is a witty paraphrase of the sign held in Heartfield's picture: "Nehme jede arbeit".
Where the two areas differ is in the games with gender played by Spence. Hearfield's image is a hetrosexual image that serves as a constructed depiction of a bride and groom. Spence, too, similarly stands beside a mannequin in bridal wear, but the fact that she is female complicates this depiction. Similarly, the fact that she wears "male" clothes suggests that she, too, is playing a role, that of a male worker. (On this gendering see Siona Wilson Art Labor, Sex Politics. Feminist Effects in 1970s British Art and Performance, University of Minesota Press, 2015, pp.145-148. Siona reproduces the slightly more oblique version of this work)
Spence's engagement with Heatfield's work at this time is also evident from its inclusion in her thesis: Jo Spence, 'Fairy Tales and Photography... or, another look at Cinderella', unpublished undergraduate thesis, Polytechnic of Central London, 1982. (see illustration)
British Photography / The Hyman Collection.
Stamped on the reverse
The present work is one of Spence and Dennett's most celebrated pictures. It in fact exists in slightly different formats: clearly taken from more than one negative: one complete frontal, the other slightly oblique.
The work itself is a direct transcription of a work by John Heartfield. Its title is the English translation of Heartfiled's title "Spitzenprodukte des kapitalismus" and the text that Spence holds - "I'll take (almost) any work" - is a witty paraphrase of the sign held in Heartfield's picture: "Nehme jede arbeit".
Where the two areas differ is in the games with gender played by Spence. Hearfield's image is a hetrosexual image that serves as a constructed depiction of a bride and groom. Spence, too, similarly stands beside a mannequin in bridal wear, but the fact that she is female complicates this depiction. Similarly, the fact that she wears "male" clothes suggests that she, too, is playing a role, that of a male worker. (On this gendering see Siona Wilson Art Labor, Sex Politics. Feminist Effects in 1970s British Art and Performance, University of Minesota Press, 2015, pp.145-148. Siona reproduces the slightly more oblique version of this work)
Spence's engagement with Heatfield's work at this time is also evident from its inclusion in her thesis: Jo Spence, 'Fairy Tales and Photography... or, another look at Cinderella', unpublished undergraduate thesis, Polytechnic of Central London, 1982. (see illustration)
British Photography / The Hyman Collection.
