Repeatedly posited at the centre of works by the Austrian artist collective G.R.A.M. in recent years has been an investigation of questions involving the re-enactment of images circulated by the mass media and stemming from collective memory. G.R.A.M. re-constructs image politics that determine both memory and history and thus themselves encourage a kind of reality production, such as in the series “Nach Motiven von … / Inspired by …” (2001). the artist collective explores re-enactments of iconic press images, for instance pictures of the hostage crisis at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, the execution of the Vietcong soldier Nguyen Van Lem, Lenin lying in state as in the “Global Player” series (2006), or even the current series about CEOs and the masterminds of stock-market speculation (2011).

In their most recent cycle, which is available as a Camera Austria edition, G.R.A.M. focuses on the stock-market traders who have been impacted by the economic crisis: the visages of anonymous individuals whose facial expressions tell of inner turmoil, pure astonishment, and sheer dismay. Widespread press photos of recent years have been reenacted in the studio, with all details of interior space removed as well as gestures and facial expressions exposed.

Handed down from Marx is the saying that while history may repeat itself, it does so only as a farce. In this sense the photographic projects by G.R.A.M. oscillate between re-enactment, appropriation, reinterpretation, and critical exposure. Each is inscribed with an idiosyncratic implicitness and self-evident irony so as to consistently keep the original at arm’s length while emphasising its construed nature.