Camera Austria International

70 | 2000

  • HANS PETER FELDMANN
  • JACOB GROOT
    Gerald van der Kaap: What we are doing
  • GERALD VAN DER KAAP
  • SVEN LÜTTICKEN
    Thomas Ruff: The Art of Anachronism
  • THOMAS RUFF
  • CHRISTIAN WOZNICKI
    Image Problem City. On the archival photographic projects of Sean Snyder
  • SEAN SNYDER
  • ROLF SACHSSE
    Marginalien zur österreichischen Fotografie

Preface

“What We are doing” is the title of the contribution that the Dutch artist Gerald Van Der Kaap has put together for CAMERA AUSTRIA 70. A montage of texts (selected by Jacob Groot) accompanies the photographic works: texts that aim to place social, political action firmly in the hands of the (responsibly acting) individual. Van Der Kaap’s artistic strategies were always geared to the public: he has always been involved in publication of magazines, operation of radio and TV stations, analyses of the international stock market and his work as a VJ and organiser of music/image events parallel to producing, processing and distributing images. He proposed »This«, a picture from 1988, for the cover of this issue.
CAMERA AUSTRIA 70 follows on from issue 69 designed by Jörg Schlick: the aim of this issue is not only to react to recent political developments in Austria, this decision also meant postponing work on an issue that had already been planned. In this issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA you will find the contributions we have been working on for some months and which we have now completed following the decisive turning point signalled by No. 69. We do not intend to go on with “business as usual”, but rather we will continue the critical discourse announced in CAMERA AUSTRIA No. 69 with the aid of the platform established in this issue, carrying on the cultural, political debate demanded by the current Austrian situation and international reactions in the context of the critical debate of international contemporary art.
The contribution by Hans-Peter Feldmann was created in connection with presentation of the 1999 CAMERA AUSTRIA prize of the city of Graz for international contemporary photography to the artist. Since 1968, Hans-Peter Feldmann has been investigating photographic images – image clichés that define the world of our conception and perception, analysing our collective image memory and conducting his art as a non-verbal, visual science. (…)
The American artist Sean Snyder also dedicates his work to archivist photographic projects. The focus of his investigations is on urban structures in the field of tension of visual standards and their critical reflection. His urban photography is about visualising global guidelines (of urban development) under local conditions. (…)

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Camera Austria International 70 | 2000
Preface

“What We are doing” is the title of the contribution that the Dutch artist Gerald Van Der Kaap has put together for CAMERA AUSTRIA 70. A montage of texts (selected by Jacob Groot) accompanies the photographic works: texts that aim to place social, political action firmly in the hands of the (responsibly acting) individual. Van Der Kaap’s artistic strategies were always geared to the public: he has always been involved in publication of magazines, operation of radio and TV stations, analyses of the international stock market and his work as a VJ and organiser of music/image events parallel to producing, processing and distributing images. He proposed »This«, a picture from 1988, for the cover of this issue.
CAMERA AUSTRIA 70 follows on from issue 69 designed by Jörg Schlick: the aim of this issue is not only to react to recent political developments in Austria, this decision also meant postponing work on an issue that had already been planned. In this issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA you will find the contributions we have been working on for some months and which we have now completed following the decisive turning point signalled by No. 69. We do not intend to go on with “business as usual”, but rather we will continue the critical discourse announced in CAMERA AUSTRIA No. 69 with the aid of the platform established in this issue, carrying on the cultural, political debate demanded by the current Austrian situation and international reactions in the context of the critical debate of international contemporary art.
The contribution by Hans-Peter Feldmann was created in connection with presentation of the 1999 CAMERA AUSTRIA prize of the city of Graz for international contemporary photography to the artist. Since 1968, Hans-Peter Feldmann has been investigating photographic images – image clichés that define the world of our conception and perception, analysing our collective image memory and conducting his art as a non-verbal, visual science. (…)
The American artist Sean Snyder also dedicates his work to archivist photographic projects. The focus of his investigations is on urban structures in the field of tension of visual standards and their critical reflection. His urban photography is about visualising global guidelines (of urban development) under local conditions. (…)
In his work, Thomas Ruff has often oriented himself to image genres of photography that address a wide public and which are inscribed into social space beyond the realm of purely pictorial representation as they are publicly used: portraits, picture postcards, wanted posters, etc. In his latest series “Nudes”, he processes pictures that suggest a private sphere – amateur pornographic photos – but which today are no longer able to shock anyone, even when they are freely available to the public. (…)
ÖSTERREICH 2000: in view of the Cultural War long heralded by the Freedom Party we are anxious that the reduction of complexity could become the leitmotif of a new cultural, political course in Austria. With CAMERA AUSTRIA No. 69 we visualised a grave turning point, at the same time we want to make it clear that, in our medium, we lay claim to and want to offer the space to discuss cultural and socio-political changes, to initiate a cultural, political debate that faces the problem of how to deal with a form of politics that threatens to intervene in the sphere of definition of art and culture, indeed, that intends to form a new national identity via culture – a form of politics for which we culture-workers have yet to find appropriate language to discuss.
The fact that commentaries and statements on the political situation are not only a concern to us was amply illustrated by the overwhelming reactions we received at the office after delivering the last issue about one month back, reactions which were by no means restricted to Austria alone. Well over 200 artists and authors sent or announced contributions. Our correspondent Rolf Sachsse has postponed his “Marginalie zur Fotografie” scheduled for this issue and spontaneously wrote a new text – “The Video Man” – on the mediatization of Jörg Haider.
For the time being, the form for a political platform remains unsettled. We have decided to publish a first forty-page selection of the contributions for discussion in this issue and hope that it will be possible to differentiate more finely in the following issues and that important questions in need of negotiation will begin to crystallise. Our aim is for the debate to transcend spontaneous and simple manifestations of solidarity and not to limit our analysis to the Austrian situation, but rather to focus in greater depth on the relation of art and politics and the role of the artist as a political subject in general. Art – as a complex process of allocations of meaning – offers a host of possible interpretations which are up for debate in the public sphere, the realm of politics. This debate allows us to settle conflicts in which the orders, conceptions of norms, and certainties with which we surround ourselves, as well as the differences and scopes must be negotiated every time anew.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who sent us material that we were not able to print in this first round – we will endeavour to seek a dialogue with you all. We hope you will continue to participate so actively in a critical cultural, political debate.

Christine Frisinghelli, Maren Lübbke, Marie Röbl, Manfred Willmann, April 2000

Entries

Forum

NICOLE WERMERS

CAROLINE MAY

KAI-ANNETT BECKER

INGA KNÖLKE

KELLY WOOD

ALEXIA WALTHER

DAVID WEIGHTMAN

SUE PARKHILL

Exhibitions

Sam Taylor-Wood: “Soliloquies” and Third Party
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
CARLO MCCORMICK

Linda McCartney’s Sixties
Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa/Florida
ANNE BARCLEY MORGAN

Mirror’s Edge
BildMuseet Umeå,Vancouver Art Gallery, Castello di Rivoli, Torino
PATRICK MOREAU

Retrace your Steps: Remember Tomorrow
Contemporary artists at Sir John Soane’s Museum
JOHN TOZER

John Davies
Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, Galerie Cent8, Paris
JULIA GARIMORTH

Porträt Afrika. Fotografische Positionen eines Jahrhunderts
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
CAROLIN FÖRSTER

Sarah Jones. Farbfotografien
Folkwang Museum Essen, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam
MAGDALENA KRÖNER

Ansicht Aussicht Einsicht. Architekturfotografie
Museum Bochum, Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig
JENS SCHRÖTER

Ute Behrend – Märchenwelt
Sabine Schmidt Galerie, Köln
WOLFGANG VOLLMER

Ist LowTech etwa Modern? LowTech. billiger, schöner, langsamer
Shedhalle Zürich
RACHEL MADER

Dinge, die wir nicht verstehen
Generali Foundation, Wien
EDITH FUTSCHER

Bekanntschaften. Helmut Kandl, Johanna Kandl, Leo Kandl
Galerie Menotti, Baden/Wien
BRIGITTE HUCK

Alice Schalek (1874 – 1956): Vom Samoa zum Isonzo
Jüdisches Museum, Wien
MARIE RÖBL

Eine Skulptur ohne klare Begrenzung. Zur Ausstellung “Troubled Walls” von Herwig Kempinger
Fotogalerie Wien
MONIKA FABER

Wien-Rundgang: Gregor Zivic, Raum aktueller Kunst, Wien; Constanze Ruhm,
Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Wien; Beat Streuli, Galerie Meyer-Kainer, Wien
MAREN LÜBBKE-TIDOW

The Invisible Touch
Kunstraum Innsbruck
MAREN LÜBBKE-TIDOW

Von Gebäuden erzählen – 4.Medien+Architektur Biennale
Thalia, Next Liberty, Graz
VRÄÄTH ÖHNER

Publi©domain – 3.Österreichische Triennale zur Fotografie
Eisernes Haus, Graz
HERWIG HÖLLER

Books

Skiagraphia – Metaphorische Ursprünge der Fotografie
Peter Bexte, Victor I. Stoichita, Michael Baxandall
MICHAEL WETZEL

ANACHRONISMUS ALS PRINZIP. Georges Didi-Huberman über den Abdruck
DuMont Verlag, Köln
STEFAN NEUNER

Wilfried Petzi: Rough Mix. Fotografien zur Kunst 88 – 99
Mosel und Tschechow, München
MICHAEL HAUFFEN

Von der Anatomie zur Medientheorie – Sektionen künstlicher Körper
Katharina Sykora, Unheimliche Paarungen / Christina Lammer, Die Puppe.
VERENA KUNI

Hamid Naficy (Hg./Ed.): HOME, EXILE, HOMELAND. Film, Media and the Politics of Place
Routledge, New York / London
DREHLI ROBNIK

Ed van der Elsken: Love on the left bank
Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport / Schaden Verlag, Köln
RIK SUERMONDT

Richard Avendon/Doon Arbus: The Sixties
Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, München
MAGDALENA KRÖNER

Imprint

Publisher: Manfred Willmann. Owner: Verein CAMERA AUSTRIA, Labor für Fotografie und Theorie
Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz

Editors: Christine Frisinghelli
Editorial assistats: Maren Lübbke, Marie Röbl, Judith Schwentner

Translations: Wilfried Prantner, Richard Watts