The Exhibition as a Montage: Ideologies of Photography on Display

Since the very origins of the medium, the display strategies, the exhibiting venues, and the selection of pictures underpinning photographic exhibitions have mirrored and at the same time redefined precise ideologies about photography. Against this background, this paper discusses two exhibitions presented in Germany between 1920 and 1929 – namely, the Erste Internationale Dada-Messe and Film und Foto –, so as to highlight opposite approaches to the identity of photography as related to the system of contemporary art.