Camera Austria International

163 | 2023

  • WERKER COLLECTIVE
    AMATOR ARCHIVES: On QUEER REPRODUCTION
  • AKINBODE AKINBIYI
    Searching for Meaning
  • AJDA ANA KOCUTAR
    What the Artist Kept Hidden: A Brief Overview of Ulay’s Early Work
  • ULAY
  • SUSANNE HOLSCHBACH
    “We have opened the gate to the stars”*
  • LUISE SCHRÖDER

Preface

For many artists, part of their work is how to handle their archives or those of others. In reconsidering underlying practices of selection and presentation, they question them, shed light on their inherent power structures, and probe the gaps in storage to identify thematic developments and open them up to discussion. The current issue of Camera Austria International takes these considerations as its point of departure to focus on artistic approaches dedicated to the wide range of functions and uses of (image) archives.

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Camera Austria International 163 | 2023
Preface

For many artists, part of their work is how to handle their archives or those of others. In reconsidering underlying practices of selection and presentation, they question them, shed light on their inherent power structures, and probe the gaps in storage to identify thematic developments and open them up to discussion. The current issue of Camera Austria International takes these considerations as its point of departure to focus on artistic approaches dedicated to the wide range of functions and uses of (image) archives.

Based on its artistic research practice, the WERKER COLLECTIVE has distilled a contribution to QUEER REPRODUCTION from its AMATOR ARCHIVE (2009–ongoing) that poses the question: “How could the archive be transformed from being a tool of domination at the service of patriarchy to supporting intersectional and intergenerational processes of personal and collective self-determination?” The focus here is on self-organized, radical ways of working, as well as queer ways of life, bodies, and hxstories; the collective “opposes a patriarchal understanding of reproduction that sustains the current status quo, based on private property, inheritance, and the passing on of privilege. We claim, ‘Let’s make books, not babies!’”

Akinbode Akinbiyi has also created a work from the photogra­phic archive he has been amassing for decades. He focuses on vernacular situations in the Global South and analyzes the (de-)colo­nial implementation of photographic images over the past two hundred years, including institutional archival practices. Akinbiyi probes into questions of visibility and writes: “I constantly question my stance in the flow [of everyday life]. Is there still this northern hemisphere privileged gaze?” What happens to those “who wander in the other direction?” They “take pictures of their tortuous journeys to the promised land. Right down to moments before drowning, being submerged in the heavy seas of the constant flow. What of these bodies of visual desperation?”

The archive of the performance and conceptual artist Ulay, who passed away in 2020, forms the core of Ajda Ana Kocutar’s text. She takes a look at the beginning of Ulay’s artistic career and parses out how his early preoccupation with photography, in particular Polaroid, shaped his later performative works, and how reserved he remained toward his own archive throughout his life. “Reading his thoughts and memories now, it seems obvious how a difficult relationship with the idea of exhibiting led to an extremely selective attitude when it came to opening his archive to others. Even in his most prolific years, when he would jump from one project to the next, Ulay rarely took the time to exhibit or publish his work.”

Considering Luise Schröder’s multimedia installation She Takes a Hand Herself in History (2015), Susanne Holschbach reveals how the work’s title can be read as a symbol for the complexity and committed approach of the artist’s practice as a whole. “Taking history into her own hands—a powerful translation of this metaphor—stands for a claim to agency, that is, for the ability to act and the opportunity to shape the course of history. Yet it also represents, for Luise Schröder, taking something into one’s hands quite literally, in order to grasp it.” For the artist, a “comprehension” of history not only includes researching and examining material, disclosing it and making it visible, but also reformulating historical narratives in order to make alternative histories imaginable.

Margit Neuhold, Christina Töpfer
September 2023

Cover: Luise Schröder, Public Parcours, 2020, from the participatory online project The Crown Letter, 2020–ongoing. Copyright: the artist and ADAGP, Paris / Bild­recht, Vienna, 2023.

Entries

Forum

Presented by June Drevet:
Marie Rief
Laura Schawelka
Valentina Triet
Vanessa Amoah Opoku
Stefanie Schwarzwimmer
Sophie Meuresch

Exhibitions

Trevor Paglen: Hide the Real, Show the False
n. b. k. – Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 10. 6. – 6. 8. 2023
MIRA ANNELI NASS

Julia Scher: Hochsicherheitsgesellschaft
Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 26. 3. – 20. 8. 2023
MORITZ SCHEPER

Somewhere Between Nature and Culture We Can Begin Again
AR Biennial—Hybrid Nature
NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, 14. 5. – 29. 10. 2023
DEMO-
Various venues in public space, Frankfurt am Main, 12. 5. 2023 – 30. 4. 2024
LARA SCHOORL

Gerald Domenig / Andrea Witzmann
Fotohof, Salzburg, 4. 8. – 30. 9. 2023
CHRISTIAN EGGER

Ruhr Ding: Schlaf
Verschiedene Orte, Ruhrgebiet, 5. 5. – 25. 6. 2023
ANDREAS PRINZING

Isa Rosenberger: Manda
Bauhausgebäude, Bauhaus Dessau, 1. 6. 2023 – 7. 1. 2024
CHRISTIN MÜLLER

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill: M*****
CAG – Contemporary Art Gallery, Van­couver, 26. 5. – 3. 9. 2023
JACOB KORCZYNSKI

Gina Folly: Autofocus
Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart, 6. 5. – 1. 10. 2023
EWA BORYSIEWICZ

Annette Frick: Ein Augenblick im Nie­­­mands­­land
Marta Herford, 6. 5. – 13. 8. 2023
SABINE WEIER

FOTO WIEN 2023: Photography Lies – die Lügen der Fotografie
Verschiedene Orte, Wien, 1. – 30. 6. 2023
JAKOB THALLER

Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is to Me
Tate Britain, London, 26. 4. – 20. 8. 2023
K21 Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 23. 9. 2023 – 14. 1. 2024
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 4. 2. – 30. 6. 2024
ORIT GAT

Jeff Weber: Image Storage Containers
CNA – Centre national de l’audiovisuel, Dudelange, 6. 5. – 1. 10. 2023
STEVEN HUMBLET

Wörthersee, Wörtersee
Kunstraum Lakeside, Klagenfurt, 5. 7. – 22. 9. 2023
SUSANNE NEUBURGER

The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project
CCA – Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 3. 5. 2023 – 3. 3. 2024
JON DAVIES

»Ein Museum ohne Wände« – Allan Porter und die Fotozeitschrift CAMERA 1966–1981
Fotobibliothek, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, 25. 2. – 13. 8. 2023
WOLFGANG BRÜCKLE

Books

Newspaper
Primary Information, New York, 2023
NAOKO KALTSCHMIDT

Ari Marcopoulos, Zines
Aperture, New York, 2023
MARCUS CIVIN

Annette Kisling, Verplaatst
Eeclectic, Berlin 2023
CAROLIN FÖRSTER

Jenny Schäfer, Arbeitstage
Verlag SuKuLTuR, Hamburg 2023
JENS ASTHOFF

Bibliothek
Moyra Davey & Peter Hujar, The Shabbiness of Beauty
MACK, London 2021
TOM ENGELS

Welche anderen?
Susan Sontag, Das Leiden anderer betrachten
Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005/2013
REINHARD BRAUN

Imprint

Publisher: Verein CAMERA AUSTRIA. Labor für Fotografie und Theorie.

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

Editors: Margit Neuhold, Christina Töpfer (editor-in-chief).

Translations: Dawn Michelle d’Atri, Elena Helfrecht, Wilfried Prantner, Andrea Scrima, Sabine Weier.

English Proofreading: Dawn Michelle d’Atri.

Acknowledgments: Akinbode Akinbiyi, Reinhard Braun, Pierre Ciot, Rogier Delfos, June Drevet, Christian Egger, Tom Engels, Anneliese Fikentscher, Annette Frick, Christine Frisinghelli, Susanne Holschbach, Ajda Ana Kocutar, Peter Kunitzky, Samir Laghouati-Rashwan, Petra Lehmkuhl, Stephanie Liebmann, Maren Lübbke-Tidow, Sophie Meuresch, Vanessa Amoah Opoku, Jamie MacRae, Lena Pislak, Marie Rief, Marc Roig Blesa, Yvonne van Santen, Laura Schawelka, Luise Schröder, Stefanie Schwarzwimmer, Valentina Triet, Sophie Thun, Sabine Weier, Ben Livne Weitzman, Manfred Willmann, Arnisa Zeqo.

Copyright © 2023
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. Although every effort has been made to find the copyright holders of all the illustrations used, this proved impossible in some cases. Interested parties are requested to contact the editors.

ISBN 978-3-902911-77-3
ISSN 1015 1915
GTIN 4 19 23106 1800 9 00163