New show opening on Thursday May 5. Franz GRAF, Eva SCHLEGEL, Manfred WAKOLBINGER

Manfred Walkolbinger

Eva Schlegel

Franz Graf

On Thursday May 5th we will open a show of the multimedia artists Franz Graf, Eva Schlegel and Manfred Walkolbinger.

Franz GRAF presents a series of Polaroid portraits of his students and various visitors to his class at the art academy in Vienna from 2000-2006. The name of the person is then written onto the Polaroid object as a graphical element, creating a dialog between the two levels of identity; the written symbol and the photographic image.

Eva SCHLEGEL has spent the last years contemplating the metaphor of "flying and falling", most recently in her single person show "In Between" in the Viennese Museum of Applied Arts. Fotohof is showing a selection of her large format screen prints on lead, a material which is both extremely heavy yet soft, reflecting the symbolic polarity in her images; heaven and earth, success and failure...

Manfred WALKOLBINGER is showing his film "Galaxies 1-4" as well as photographs which are at the heart of this animation. It deals with underwater images of creatures which Wakolbinger presents as science fiction creations. An homage of sorts on his "heroes" Jodorowsky, Lynch and the mountain societies of the Toroja in central Sulawesi, Wakolbinger photographs in the waters of the Indonesia which hold a certain relevance in the development of mammals and thus mankind.

Opening: Thursday, 5. May 2011, 7 pm

Words: Edelbert Köb

At 9pm a DJ Performance by Franz Pomassl / Party

Exhibition rums from 6. May until 18. June 2011

New show opening on Tuesday, March 8th.

Anatoliy Babiychuk

DIE FOTOGRAFIE IN REFERENZ…

Anatoliy Babiychuk, Anna Barfuss, Adrian Buschmann, Selma Doborac, Karine Fauchard, Julian Feritsch, Manfred Hubmann, Ludwig Kittinger & Fernando Mesquita, Lazar Lyutakov, Anja Manfredi, Christoph Meier, Julia Müller-Maenher, Wolfgang Obermair und Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair, Georg Petermichl, Max Schaffer, Antoine Turillon, Franz Zar, Marcin Zarzeka

Martin Vesely (Kurator)

Exhibition opening: Tuesday, 8 March 2011, 7 pm

Introduction: Andreas Spiegl, Vienna

Duration: 9 March to 30 April 2011

Photography is explored here at its margins under the curatorial eye of Martin Vesely at the Galerie Fotohof…

“(…) What are the essential characteristics of photography?

The lens itself sees nothing; it perceives vicariously. The transfer occurs by means of a (technical) apparatus, a construct. The incoming density, the information is replicated on a medium in analogue or digital form.

It is only in the short timeframes of the exposure itself that the photograph is allowed to exist as a photograph, with this partial loss of control capturing the photograph’s auratic nature.

Too much is indeterminately recorded in that empty space, at first without meaning, the informal having the opportunity to be borne to the surface, the emanation of the referent (Roland Barthes) shown by means of an imprint, a track.

The reference speculates with knowledge, as it were, wanting to be decoded, with the past updated only in the act of contemplation. Mistrust is always apposite, for too many factors impact the process of creation.

Index, track, imprint, referentiality, technical reproducibility – these are all terms which are now deeply embedded in our theoretical vocabulary, terms which admittedly are debated first and foremost in photography and the theory of photography, but which from the very outset also served as fundamental parameters of art and aesthetics in general.” (…)

Martin Vesely

OPENING - Viviane Sassen. Tuesday, 18 Jan. 7 pm

Viviane Sassen, Now & Than, 2007,

courtesy the artist and Motive Gallery Amsterdam

Viviane Sassen, Menthe, 2010, courtesy the artist and Motive Gallery Amsterdam

VIVIANE SASSEN

FLAMBOYA

Exhibition opening: Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 7 pm

Introduction: Prof. Peter Weiermair

Duration: 19 January 2011 – 5 March 2011

Vivien Sassen’s Flamboya cycles were created in places in Africa where she lived as a child. In these groups of works the Dutch photographer addresses issues such as the perception and reception of human images; their open concept is such that they can be situated within the context of both staged and documentary photography.

With the play of light and shadow and the use of colourful symbolism - Flamboya refers to a species of flowering plant or tree with a particularly flamboyant display of flowers - the scenes featuring her protagonists transpose them from their everyday lives to a surreal setting. Far from the West’s conventional clichés of the continent as a whole the artist succeeds, thanks in part to her personal history and identity, in reflecting herself in those standing before her and in inscribing herself in an archaic yet also highly contemporary image of Africa.

Viviane Sassen was born in 1972 in Amsterdam, where she lives and works. She is represented by Motive Gallery Amsterdam.

For more detailed information please visit www.vivianesassen.com and www.motivegallery.nl

Peter Weiermair, publicist, exhibition organiser and publisher, lives and works in Innsbruck, Frankfurt and New York.

Fotohof gratefully acknowledges the support of the Mondriaan Foundation Amsterdam.

Inge Morath, FIRST COLOR. Clair, Munich.

Inge Morath / First Color

Opening on December 7, running until January 22, 2011

Following Inge Morath’s death in 2002, nearly 10.000 hitherto unknown color originals were recovered from storage in Paris and New York. This body of images, together with Morath’s known archive of color material, reveals the development of a distinct sensibility. Inge Morath was undoubtedly influenced by the legendary hostility of her colleague, Henri Cartier-Bresson, to color photography. Morath’s own ambivalence is reflected in the contradiction between the sheer volume of color film that she exposed and its absence from her exhibited and published works. Her color vision, already strong in her photographs of gypsy encampments in Ireland in 1954, matured in the late 1950s, during her documentation of the Middle East, in 1956, and Romania, where she worked in 1958. From the ‘60s on, Morath employed color as a central element within her documentary narratives. Filling in a significant lacuna in her previously published work, First Color is an examination of Morath’s first decade of work in color, and is drawn largely from the trove of posthumously recovered material.

(Steidl)

°CLAIR

Franz-Joseph-Str. 10
D-80801 München
Tel.+49.(0)89.386 67 442

Mob.+49.(0)151.252 617 20 (Anna-Patricia Kahn) oder
+49.(0)172.838 27 77 (Markus Penth)

info@clair.me

OPENING - Susi Krautgartner / Leo Kandl. Thursday 18. Nov. 7 pm

Susi Krautgartner, from Uncanny Valley

Leo Kandl. from Free Portraits

Leo Kandl – Free Portraits

Susi Krautgartner – Uncanny Valley

Opening: Thrusday, 18. Nov. 7 pm

Words: Stefanie Hoch, Curater, Landesgalerie, Linz

Leo Kandl has immersed himself in the genre of portrait photography for several decades, whereby he unites the conceptual documentary process with the subjectivity and individuality of the object. In „Free Portraits“ Kandl made contact with his models through newspaper advertisements. Cities such as Vienna, London, New York, Tehran, Moscow and Havana became the public backdrop for works that at times give the impression of being snapshots from the streets, or private photographs. Kandl’s style allows the observer to engage with the subject emotionally as the potentially tense meeting of two strangers in role play, the subject and photographer, produces images characterized by curiosity and an occasionally subtle, erotically charged atmosphere.

“Uncanny Valley” is named after a well-known hypothesis of roboticist Masahiro Mori. Mori’s theory describes the empirically measureable effect of an emotional response to non-human entities. Essentially, human-likeness triggers empathy. However, when an almost perfect human-likeness is achieved, strong negative emotions can be detected. Susi Krautgartner invokes this effect through the medium of self-portrait which express familiar role models and stereo types.

Guest speaker at the exhibition is Stefanie Hoch, Curator of the LANDESGALERIE LINZ.

Artist biographies are available at www.fotohof.at

This evening we will also present our latest publication:

Leo Kandl, Free Portraits

Hardcover, 105 pages, 82 color photos

with a text from Jurko Prochasko

Fotohof edition 2010, Vol. 109

ISBN: 978-3-902675-09-5

€ 33,-

Introducing the ARTOTHEK

Fotohof has launched the new Artothek. Imagine a library of ca. 90 images, beautifully framed and ready to hang. For a very low monthly fee of 4,- euro (40,- for a years subscription) you can have an images from the collection for as long as you like, of course with the possiblity to purchase. Most of the images are from our Editions Series, which has been an expanding collection of limited edition works by many well known photographers who have worked closely with the gallery over the last 25 years.

Get all of the info here.