Photos – Points of View in Austrian Photography from the 1930s until Today
30 January–5 May 2013
21er Haus
Museum of Contemporary Art
Schweizergarten / Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna, Austria
Hours: Wednesday 10–21h
Thursday–Sunday 10–18h
T 43 (01) 795 57 270
press [at] 21erhaus.at
Photos shows some 100 Austrian pictures from the past 80 years. The three defining parameters of photography have been used as leitmotifs underlying the selection of works: object, subject, and how they are made to interrelate—in other words, things, people, and photography per se. The exhibition features photographs and their motifs rather than photography in general. Pictures reveal themselves without being contextualized by subject or date, within a hierarchy or chronology. They appear just as we encounter them in everyday life: as a random flood of images. Digital, edited pictures are juxtaposed with analog photos, spanning various genres such as still life, artistic and documentary photography, portraits and nudes, press photography, and reportage.
Photos represents a reduction to the essential. The works stand front and center and must account for themselves—especially whether they have something to tell us here and now, regardless of whether they were created in the 1930s or last week. So the show is about images, pure and simple, and the potential of a force that goes beyond what words can express.
This exhibition has been drawn from those collections that best reflect the work of Austrian photographers: the Artothek des Bundes (federal collection of contemporary art), housed at the 21er Haus since fall 2012; the federal photographic collection of the Austrian Gallery of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, and of course that of the 21er Haus / Belvedere itself. The exhibition design by Clegg & Guttmann uses partitions attuned to Karl Schwanzer’s construction of the 21er Haus. It constantly creates new constellations and lines of sight, encouraging visitors to meander through the show and to find their own narratives.
Curators
Severin Dünser, Axel Köhne
With works by C. Angelmaier, Herbert Bayer, Gottfried Bechtold, Norbert Becwar, Arthur Benda, Martin Bruch, Rosa Brueckl / Gregor Schmoll, Clegg & Guttmann, Herbert de Colle, Plamen Dejanov & Svetlana Heger, Inge Dick, Gerald Domenig, Andreas Duscha, Thomas Freiler, Padhi Frieberger, Bernhard Fuchs, Seiichi Furuya, Walther Gamerith, Robert Gruber, Eva Grubinger, Manfred Grübl, Harald Gsaller, Ernst Haas, Maria Hahnenkamp, Robert F. Hammerstiel, Matthias Herrmann, Richard Hoeck, Kathi Hofer, Christine Hohenbüchler, Edgar Honetschläger, Dieter Huber, Franz Hubmann, Gerhard Jurkovic, Werner Kaligofsky, Eleni Kampuridis, Leo Kandl, Barbara Kapusta, Herwig Kempinger, Erich Kofler-Fuchsberger, Peter Kogler, Paul Kranzler, Richard Kratochwill, Elke Silvia Krystufek, Erich Kuss, Heimo Lattner, Paul Albert Leitner, Branko Lenart, Ernst Logar, Dorit Margreiter, Michael Mauracher, Ursula Mayer, Michael Neumüller, Martin Osterider, Michael Part, Helga Pasch, Hermes Payrhuber, Pascal Petignat & Martin Scholz-Jakszus, Friederike Pezold, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Barbara Pflaum, Cora Pongracz, Ferry Radax, Anja Ronacher, Constanze Ruhm, Didi Sattmann, Christoph Scharff, Klaus Scherübel, Alfons Schilling, Michael Schuster, Günther und Loredana Selichar, Lucie Stahl, Hermann Staudinger, Alexander Stern, Ingeborg Strobl, Octavian Trauttmansdorff, Herwig Turk, Nadim Vardag, Christian Wachter, Peter Weibel, Manfred Willmann, Erwin Wurm, Michael Ziegler, and Heimo Zobernig.
Press contact
Felicitas Herberstein
Head of Communication
Belvedere/21er Haus
Exhibition catalogue – bibliographic data
Title: Photos – Points of View in Austrian Photography from the 1930s until Today
Editors: Agnes Husslein-Arco, Severin Dünser, Axel Köhne and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture
Softcover, 288 pages, 19 x 24 cm
Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg GmbH
ISBN 978-3-86984-403-9 (Bookshop edition)
ISBN 978-3-902805-06-5 (Museum edition)
