Strange Beauty: Hannah Höch and the Photomontage Author(s): Kristin Makholm Source: MoMA, No. 24 (Winter - Spring, 1997), pp. 19-23 Published by: The Museum of Modern Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4381346 Accessed: 10-08-2014 15:44 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The Museum of Modern Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MoMA. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.230.234.162 on Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:44:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StrangeBeauty: m HANNAHEUocH and the Ph)otomo n tage KRISTIN MAKHOLM THE NAME HANNAH HOCH is probablynot thefirst to come to mind when consideringthe anticsof Berlin Dada. Artists such as George Grosz,John Heartfield,or RaoulHausmann seem moresuited to Dada'spolitical and social critiquesand its loud-mouthed,rowdy contempt of traditionalbourgeois art and aesthetics.Yet it is Hannah Hoch, whom HansRichter dubbed the "goodgirl" of Berlin Dada, who took the characteristicDada medium of pho- tomontageto its most provocativeand challengingheights. With photographsfrom mass-marketperiodicals, Hoch's -J, ~ ~ ~ 9 photomontagesdisplay the chaosand combustionof Berlin's visual culture from a particularlyfemale perspective.By chartingher preoccupation with photomontagefrom I9I8 to A -i'w,'u' , * 7 the earlyI970s, the exhibitionThe Photomontages ofHannah Hoch, on view at The Museumof ModernArt from Febru- ary27 to May 20, demonstratesHc&hs remarkable achieve- ments in this quintessential modern medium and her sensitivityto the powerof an explosivemedia culture.