PHOTO:Camera Austria International-Laboratory for Photography & Theory
Featuring works by no fewer than 37 photographers from 11 nations whose art was showcased, publicized, and discussed at Camera Austria in the past decades, the exhibition “Camera Austria International-Laboratory for Photography and Theory” offers an unprecedented retrospective of the gallery-and-journal’s activities. The diverse conceptual and thematic approaches of the artists included in the show exemplify Camera Austria’s focus and add up to a panorama of the evolution and dissemination of fine art photography in Austria since the 1970s.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Museum der Moderne-Rupertinum Archive
Divided into eight chapters, “Camera Austria International-Laboratory for Photography and Theory” presents artists associated with Camera Austria in its early years side by side with contemporary positions. Combining dialogical engagement with a focus on continuity, this arrangement generates visual discourses around photography that can activate aspects of the organization’s history for present-day concerns. The symposia, exhibitions, and publications in Camera Austria International provided unique platforms connecting the international and Austrian photography scenes. At the same time, the organization opened a “window” on the world early on, alerting local photographers to what was happening outside Austria while conversely drawing international attention to their work. In this sense, the exhibition also highlights an important chapter in the history of art and photography in Austria, which took a different course than in Germany, the Netherlands, or the United States. What was most sorely lacking in the 1970s were academic institutions that offered training in photography. Public collections were largely inaccessible to historians of photography; funding was scarce and slow to grow and it took time for the debate over photography in the art context to catch on. The untiring efforts of Camera Austria’s founders Manfred Willmann and Christine Frisinghelli since the 1970s to put together exhibitions, symposia, and publications and initiate discussions of Austrian and international photography were instrumental in this regard. To this day, Camera Austria is an indispensable platform for debate, gallery, publishing house, archive, library, and venue hosting workshops and symposia. On presentation are works by: Robert Adams, Nobuyoshi Araki, Lewis Baltz, Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Petar Dabac, William Eggleston, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Seiichi Furuya, Luigi Ghirri, David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Sanja Iveković, Sven Johne, Lamia Joreige, Annette Kelm, Iosif Király, Joachim Koester, Zofia Kulik, Darcy Lange, Tatiana Lecomte, Susan Meiselas, Zanele Muholi, Peter Piller, Walid Raad, Einar Schleef, Jörg Schlick, Michael Schmidt, Michael Schuster & Hartmut Skerbisch, Allan Sekula, Ahlam Shibli, Lieko Shiga, Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch, Jo Spence, Christian Wachter, Manfred Willmann and Tobias Zielony.
Info: Curators: Christiane Kuhlmann, Assistant Curator Christina Penetsdorfer, Guest Curator: Christine Frisinghelli, Museum der Moderne – Rupertinum, Wiener-Philharmoniker-Gasse 9, Salzburg, Duration: 24/11/18-3/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 10:00-18:00, Wed 10:00-20:00, www.museumdermoderne.at
