Camera Austria International

152 | 2020

  • LISA STUCKEY
    Sequences Fallen out of Their Time
  • KARINA NIMMERFALL
  • DHYANDRA LAWSON
    Janna Ireland Turns Indignities into Triumphs
  • JANNA IRELAND
  • CALLUM BEANEY
    Incompletion Is Completion: Jerome Ming’s Oobanken
  • JEROME MING
  • RAPHAEL DILLHOF
    oceans + ghosts
  • JENNY SCHÄFER

Preface

In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard states that “our house is our corner of the world” (p. 26), a place shaped by memories and reveries. Yet the domestic sphere is certainly not to be seen as a site for retreating into a state of self-focused interiority, especially not in times of social distancing and spatial isolation. Rather, the positions presented in this issue shed light on how a social, political, and psychological exterior always also manifests within the intricate spaces of the private realm.

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Camera Austria International 152 | 2020
Preface

In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard states that “our house is our corner of the world” (p. 26), a place shaped by memories and reveries. Yet the domestic sphere is certainly not to be seen as a site for retreating into a state of self-focused interiority, especially not in times of social distancing and spatial isolation. Rather, the positions presented in this issue shed light on how a social, political, and psychological exterior always also manifests within the intricate spaces of the private realm.

Karina Nimmerfall deals in many of her works with sites or architectural structures which embody the promise of a “better” future, which open up “possibilities for urban transformation processes in geographical and philosophical-topological respects,” as Lisa Stuckey writes in her text about four of Nimmerfall’s projects realized in recent years. In these “sequences fallen out of their time,” it is not always clearly discernible where the boundaries between reality and fiction run, at which points diverging temporal planes coincide, or where visions of the future are overturned.

Janna Ireland also explores different planes of reality. In her interior shots and self-portraits, which are rich in art-historical references, the artist plays with the codes of a white-connoted leisure class and their clearly displayed affluence by staging herself alone or with her family in a Southern California villa. Dhyandra Lawson analyzes how “Ireland began using her own image as a subject in her work to correct the predominance of white subjects in the Western art canon.” The artist touches on a similar topic in the series There Is Only One Paul R. Williams (2016–ongoing), in which she traces the projects of the African American architect Paul 
Revere Williams.

Jerome Ming’s first book Oobanken was published in 2019 and comprises photographs of carefully arranged sculptures and models, and also of staged everyday moments, which the artist took in 2013–14 while living and working in Myanmar. All photos document scenes staged in Ming’s immediate surroundings, usually domestic, with his aim being to find “a way to think about photography differently.” In this work, Callum Beaney sees “a dialogue about the act of creation itself. Before Ming’s camera, both success and failure, final work and experiment, are given equal footing. . . . As composed scenes, the ‘documentation’ starts to come together, and to feel like a work in its own right.”

The pictorial worlds created by Jenny Schäfer in the collages of her current series oceans + ghosts (2020) are populated by plastic figures, decorative items, animal stickers, and other kinds of supposedly superfluous objects that accumulate over time in the playrooms of children in the Western world. Raphael Dillhof believes that these objects, which the artist stages against romantic sunsets or vividly blue pools, epitomize stability in an era overshadowed by uncertainty and threat on multiple levels: “Schäfer’s images withhold any sense of orientation and jolt the viewer while remaining deeply serene at the same time, calming in their aesthetics, in their open curiosity, in their esteeming, unprejudiced treatment of their material.”
Reality and fiction also become blurred in the artwork of six students from the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, who are introduced in this issue by Milo Keller, head of their study program. Computer-generated images, as well as virtual and augmented reality, allow photography to engage with the realm of the digital. Moreover, our subscribers will receive a miniposter with this issue, which has already become a tradition. We are especially pleased that James Welling accepted our invitation to design the poster, sharing with us one of the motifs from his current series Cento (2019–ongoing).

Christina Töpfer and the Camera Austria Team
December 2020

Entries

Forum

Presented by Milo Keller:
Manqin Zhang
Sara Bastai
Maeva Bosko
Joanna Wierzbicka
Natalie Maximova
Olivia Wünsche

Exhibitions

curated by: Hybrids
Propaganda Women – Maïa Izzo-Foulquier, Thelma Hell, Zelda Weinen
Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna, curated by Lili Reynaud-Dewar and Olga Rozenblum, 5. 9. – 3. 10. 2020
Discrete Simulation
Crone Wien, Vienna, curated by Jakob Lena Knebl, 5. – 26. 9. 2020
Untitled (Molly House)
Exile, Vienna, curated by Julius Pristauz, 5. 9. – 17. 10. 2020
EMILY MCDERMOTT

Jimmy Robert: Akimbo
Nottingham Contemporary, 26. 9. 2020 – 3. 1. 2021
CRAC Occitanie, Sète, 4. 2. – 16. 5. 2021 Museion, Bolzano, 28. 5. – 21. 8. 2021
NIKI RUSSELL

A Cage Is a Cage Is a Cage
Joanna Piotrowska: Frowst
Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 18. 9. – 6. 12. 2020
EWA BORYSIEWICZ

Fotograf Festival X: Uneven Ground
Various venues, Prague, 6. – 18. 10. 2020
JOHN HILL

VALIE EXPORT: Collection Care
FC – Francisco Carolinum, 16. 5. – 13. 9. 2020
Hommage à VALIE EXPORT
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, 30. 9. 2020 – 10. 1. 2021
ANA HOFFNER

Roxy Farhat: Still Interested in This Image?
Skånes konstförening, Malmö, 12. 9. – 11. 10. 2020
FRIDA SANDSTRÖM

Während alle fotografieren können sich manche mit der Fotografie beschäftigen
Fotohof, Salzburg, 6. 10. – 23. 12. 2020
Marina Faust: Otto-Breicha-Preis für Fotokunst – Museum der Moderne Salzburg 2019
Rupertinum – Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 26. 9. 2020 – 14. 2. 2021
Luise Schröder: Erinnerung ist ein Gespenst
Salzburger Kunstverein, 3. 10. – 29. 11. 2020
MARGIT NEUHOLD

Heinz Peter Knes: Fotografische Arbeit
Künstlerhaus Bremen, 27. 9. – 22. 11. 2020
MAREN LÜBBKE-TIDOW

Maya Schweizer: Stimmen
Museum Villa Stuck, München, 22. 10. 2020 – 24. 1. 2021
MIRA ANNELI NASS

Michael Schmidt: Retrospektive. Fotografien 1965 – 2014
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, 23. 8. 2020 – 17. 1. 2021
Jeu de Paume, Paris, 11. 5. – 29. 8. 2021
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 21. 9. 2021 – 28. 2. 2022
Albertina, Wien, 24. 3. – 12. 6. 2022
CAROLIN FÖRSTER

Companion Pieces: New Photography
moma.org (online) / MoMA, New York, 28. 9. – 16. 11. 2020
CHRISTINA TÖPFER

Adrian Sauer: Foto Arbeiten
Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, 4. 9. – 8. 11. 2020
MARINUS REUTER

Medium Versus Context: Struggle for Specificity
11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art: The Crack Begins Within
Various venues, Berlin, 5. 9. – 1. 11. 2020
MOHAMMAD SALEMY

Zanele Muholi
Tate Modern, London, 5. 11. 2020 – 7. 3. 2021
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 17. 3. – 6. 6. 2021
Gropius Bau, Berlin, 16. 7. – 31. 10. 2021
Bildmuseet, Umeå, 26. 11. 2021 – 17. 4. 2022
MERCEDES VICENTE

Weltgeschichte als ein Fluss mit vielen Ufern
Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne – Das Original
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 4. 9. – 1. 11. 2020
PAUL MELLENTHIN

Books

Talking Books
Erik van der Weijde in Conversation with . . . Ari Marcopoulos
Ari Marcopoulos: Machine
Red Lebanese, Paris 2017
Conrad McRae Youth League Tournament
Roma Publications, Amsterdam 2020
Ari Marcopoulos: June 2020
Chaos, Brooklyn, NY, 2020

Krystian Woznicki: Undeclared Movements
b_books, Berlin 2020
PETER KUNITZKY

Susanne Huth: Analog Algorithm – Landscapes of Machine Learning
Fotohof edition, Salzburg 2020
CHRISTINA NATLACEN

»Gegenwartsversessenheit«
Drehli Robnik: Ansteckkino. Eine politische Philosophie und Geschichte des Pandemie-Spielfilms von 1919 bis Covid-19
Neofelis-Verlag, Berlin 2020
SARAH SANDER

Imprint

Publisher: Reinhard Braun

Owner: Verein CAMERA AUSTRIA. Labor für Fotografie und Theorie.
Lendkai 1, 8020 Graz, Austria

Editor-in-Chief: Christina Töpfer.
Editor: Margit Neuhold.

Translations: Dawn Michelle d’Atri, Hilda Hoy, Matthew Hyland, Peter McCavana, Lina Morawetz, Wilfried Prantner.

English Proofreading: Dawn Michelle d’Atri.

Acknowledgments: Florian Amoser, Selim Atakurt, Sara Bastai, Callum Beaney, Estelle Blaschke, Maeva Bosko, Sabeth Buchmann, Raphael Dillhof, Regine Ehleiter, Janna Ireland, Dejan und Jelena Kaludjerovic, Milo Keller, Stephanie Kiwitt, Dhyandra Lawson, Thomas Le Provost, Ari Marcopoulos, Paul Mellenthin, Jerome Ming, Karina Nimmerfall, Natalie Maximova, Yasufumi Nakamori, Marinus Reuter, Tereza Rudolf, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Jenny Schäfer, Maya Schweizer, Eugenie Shinkle, Christian Siekmeier, Shelly Silver, Lisa Stuckey, Erik van der Weijde, Mercedes Vicente, Anna Voswinckel, Franziska Weinberger, James Welling, Joanna Wierzbicka, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Olivia Wünsche, Manqin Zhang.

Copyright © 2020
No parts of this magazine may be reproduced without publisher’s permission.
Camera Austria International does not assume any responsibility for submitted texts and original materials.

ISBN 978-3-902911-59-9
ISSN 1015 1915
GTIN 4 19 23106 1600 5 00152