Camera Austria International
93 | 2006
- CHRISTINE FRISINGHELLI
Jörg Schlick: 1951 – 2005 - JÖRG SCHLICK
- ANNE BERTRAND
Jean-Luc Mylayne: Denkbilder - JEAN-LUC MYLAYNE
- SANDRA KRIŽIĆ ROBAN
Mladen Stilinović: 63 Metres of Pain - MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
- ULRICH LOOCK
Ahlam Shibli: Resisting Oppression - AHLAM SHIBLI
- ANDREAS SPIEGL
Markus Krottendorfer: A Portrait of Photography: Photographed - MARKUS KROTTENDORFER
- RUTH SONDEREGGER
Critical Theory of Social Pictures (1)
Preface
In this issue of Camera Austria, No. 93/2006, we feature artistic positions from two generations, whose common focus seems to lie in the pictures and yet outside of the portrayed object. While the subject of their work could not be more different, Jean-Luc Mylayne and Mladen Stilinovic (both born in the 1940s) nevertheless share a characteristic uncompromising consistency in their artistic practice: for years, Jean-Luc Mylayne has been persistently pursuing a single subject with his camera – songbirds. He subordinates the organisation of his whole life to this task, and this fascinating constant was the starting point from which Anne Bertrand set out in a number of interviews with the artist to find an angle on this very specific work and to work out its aesthetic and conceptual “punctum”.
Read more →Camera Austria International 93 | 2006
Preface
In this issue of Camera Austria, No. 93/2006, we feature artistic positions from two generations, whose common focus seems to lie in the pictures and yet outside of the portrayed object. While the subject of their work could not be more different, Jean-Luc Mylayne and Mladen Stilinovic (both born in the 1940s) nevertheless share a characteristic uncompromising consistency in their artistic practice: for years, Jean-Luc Mylayne has been persistently pursuing a single subject with his camera – songbirds. He subordinates the organisation of his whole life to this task, and this fascinating constant was the starting point from which Anne Bertrand set out in a number of interviews with the artist to find an angle on this very specific work and to work out its aesthetic and conceptual “punctum”.
The strategies of the Croatian artist Mladen Stilinovic are the focus of Sandra Krizic Roban’s essay. Starting from his artistic beginnings in the international context of conceptual art and in the socio-political frame of Yugoslavia in the 1970s, the author – mindful of the tremendous political and economic upheaval suffered by the country in subsequent years – attempts to find an angle on the work of this multimedia artist and his (ever political and, at the same time, profoundly personal) subject.
We see the serial works of Ahlam Shibli and Markus Krottendorfer, both born in the 1970s, as adopting a more immediate documentary approach to reality. In his text, Ulrich Loock discusses the new “Trackers” photo series by Ahlam Shibli, that she dedicates to Palestinian volunteers of Bedouin origin who are deployed as trackers in the Israeli army. In this series, Shibli focuses on contradictions within the people to which the artist herself belongs that are as hard to comprehend as they are to accept.
Andreas Spiegl’s text offers the very first theoretical examination of the work of Markus Krottendorfer. In his contribution to Camera Austria, Krottendorfer presents excerpts of his previous art work: in addition to an extensive series on the ecological and social transformations accompanying the “Three-Gorges Project” in China, his topics range from an exploration of architecture and urban structures (politically motivated, among other things), to portrait photography.
The philosopher Ruth Sonderegger has agreed to carry on our regular column, kicking off her series of essays with a piece on the visual practices of saying no against the background of a concept of criticism after post-structuralism which she will also be exploring in the next three issues of Camera Austria.
We have preceded the contributions in this issue with a series of montages by Jörg Schlick, who passed away in December 2005. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sympathy, grief and our gratitude. Jörg Schlick supported and encouraged us not only as a friend, he also left a lasting mark on our work for Camera Austria thanks to his presence of mind and inspiration. In 2000, for example, moved by the dramatic changes in the political landscape of Austria at the time, he designed Camera Austria No. 69 (the “black issue”), an issue that triggered an intensive political debate among art and culture workers, that we undogmatically focused on and represented in the following issues in 2000. In his art, Jörg Schlick focused repeatedly on the role allocated to the artist by society, without making this political question the “subject” of his work in a didactic manner; rather, his overall stance – as an artist, promoter, designer and teacher – manifested his profoundly ethical approach, that should induce us to review our work again and again.
Christine Frisinghelli
Entries
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Jörg Schlick: 1951 – 2005
I met Jörg Schlick at the beginning of the 1980s. At the time – and until after the mid-1990s – he was a youth care worker in an apprentice’s hostel, a bread and butter job that allowed him his independence as an artist. He was organising culture days for apprentices at the time, with the aim of enabling apprentices to get into contemporary art, but ultimately also to focus the discussion on artistic work outside the art institutions. This goal would run through his whole life and demonstrates the seriousness of his artistic approach as well as his political thought. But it also evidences his decision – taken at a very early stage – to stay locally entrenched in this city – Graz – and to pursue art education on an equal level with his own artistic work. A few years later, at steirischer herbst 1983, I remember the performance of his symphonic composition »Besser als Ludwig Van« (better than Ludwig Van), in which he identically reproduced the structure and tonal intensity of the four movements of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, playing each movement with a different instrument. Particularly in view of its presumptuous title, this performance – given in the context of an avant-garde festival, challenging and ironically commenting on its aspirations – formed the heroic other end of the scale, as it were, of gestures of artistic empowerment.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 10–17.
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JÖRG SCHLICK
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 10–17.
Jörg Schlick, o. T. / Untitled, 2004, aus einer 21-teiligen Serie von Fotomontagen / from a 21-part serie of photo montages. S/W- Fotografien auf Karton / b/w photographs on cardboard, je / each 43,9 cm × 32,6 cm. -
JÖRG SCHLICK
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 10–17.
Jörg Schlick, o. T. / Untitled, 2004, aus einer 21-teiligen Serie von Fotomontagen / from a 21-part serie of photo montages. S/W- Fotografien auf Karton / b/w photographs on cardboard, je / each 43,9 cm × 32,6 cm. -
JÖRG SCHLICK
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 10–17.
Jörg Schlick, o. T. / Untitled, 2004, aus einer 21-teiligen Serie von Fotomontagen / from a 21-part serie of photo montages. S/W- Fotografien auf Karton / b/w photographs on cardboard, je / each 43,9 cm × 32,6 cm.
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Jean-Luc Mylayne: Denkbilder
For those who already know Jean-Luc Mylayne’s work, but also those who are coming to it for the first time, he?s the bird photographer. Well, yes and no. The images in this portfolio, and in particular the most recent ones, will intrigue even those who thought they were familiar with his work. His approach has perhaps never been more clearly brought out. Jean-Luc Mylayne is one of the great artists of our time. He is a conceptualist who’s anything but cold, though it’s true that he’s radical. Thirty years ago, he chose to cut himself off, more or less, from our frequently urban everyday world (but also from the little world of contemporary art), and to distance himself, where necessary, from his own country, so as to devote himself to a task that required total dedication. It was a life choice for himself and his wife Mylène, who gave him the name he adopted as an artist. But such is his artistic nature that after taking leave of society to construct an Oeuvre in the heart of nature, with the complicity of birds, he has done us the favour of letting us see, if we care to, his images, and of giving us, at the same time, much more than the sense of wonder that they immediately inspire. These images conceal nothing of a reality that’s mixed, imperfect, fleeting when it’s joyous. They show the absolute power of resistance that’s embodied in a bird. Is it a lesson? To be ever curious, courageous, ready for anything; like this tiny bird with the strong personality which, having plumbed, alone, the depths of the empty sky, confronts the great wide world. Yes.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 18–29.
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JEAN-LUC MYLAYNE
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 18–29.
Jean-Luc Mylayne, N° B10, novembre-décembre 2000 - janvier 2001. C-print, 123 cm × 153 cm.
Courtesy: Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York. -
JEAN-LUC MYLAYNE
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 18–29.
Jean-Luc Mylayne, N° S1P, juillet-août 1982. C-print, 126 cm × 126 cm.
Courtesy: Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York. -
JEAN-LUC MYLAYNE
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 18–29.
Jean-Luc Mylayne, N° B1, novembre-décembre 2000 - janvier 2001. C-print, 153 cm × 123 cm.
Courtesy: Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York. -
JEAN-LUC MYLAYNE
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 18–29.
Doppelseite / spread: Jean-Luc Mylayne, S. / pp. 26–27.
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Mladen Stilinović: 63 Metres of Pain
Mladen Stilinovic sits in his room, which is both his working studio and his exhibition room, next to the window with a view of one of the few successful urban refuges of Zagreb. On a small round table there is the inevitable ashtray and a packet of cigarettes, a cup of coffee. The table is reminiscent of a gambling table, invites you for a game – perhaps we might roll the dice, on the sides of which there is a single word: PAIN. In order to understand Stilinovic’s artistic position since the 1970s, certain hypotheses from the existing critical evaluations of his work are important. Viewed in the context of conceptual artistic practice, Mladen Stilinovic began early with his analytical, critical, and self-reflexive pieces, gradually developing an individual artistic approach of extraordinary intellectual power. The Yugoslav version of conceptual art has undoubtedly participated in the international current, as confirmed by some of the most important exhibitions held in the past ten years, which presented certain individual and group opuses in the context of Central European art. This version was generated in an urban environment and is characterised by certain aspects of social and cultural reality that made it appear as an “alternative to the crisis of modernist art”. Working alone as well as within a group, which is to be understood as a loose association of artists, Mladen Stilinovic was open to various ideas and impacts – to the influences of literary and linguistic theories and the adoption of new perspectives – which have become an element of his creative work.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 30–40.
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MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 30–40.
Mladen Stilinović, Detail aus / from: Eksploatacija mrtvih / Ausbeutung der Toten / Exploitation of the Dead, , 1984 - 1990.
Photo: Boris Cvjetanovic. -
MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 30–40.
Mladen Stilinović, Izvadjeni iz gomile / Aus der Menge gepflückt / Pickes from the Crowd, 1976, Pastell auf Papier und SW-Fotografie / pastel on paper and b/w photograph, 48 cm × 35 cm. -
MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 30–40.
Mladen Stilinović, Words - Slogans 1973 - 1983.
Installation im Arbeitsraum des Künstlers / Installation at the artist´s workroom, 2005. -
MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 30–40.
Doppelseite / spread: Mladen Stilinović, S. / pp. 36–37.
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Ahlam Shibli: Resisting Oppression
Ahlam Shibli said that “Trackers” is a means of thinking about “the price to be paid by a minority to the majority, perhaps in order to be accepted, perhaps to change its identity, perhaps to survive, or perhaps to achieve all of this and more”. Ahlam Shibli’s photographic aesthetic is characterised by the fragmentation of contexts and by a focus on isolated gestures, constellations and circumstances. No individual picture claims to fully portray a particular situation. Only the combination of numerous details, gleaned from an in-depth scrutiny of the photos, allows the observer to construct a statement that the photographer refrains from explicating. The pictures are concerned with the situation of Palestinians of Bedouin descent serving as volunteers in the Israeli army who, by dint of their official oath, accept being deployed against other Palestinians. They present these soldiers affected by a fatality that can be attributed to the “catastrophe” of 1948, the foundation of the state of Israel and the defeat of the Arab forces which resulted in the ruin of Palestine. They also show that the Bedouin’s service, including the reward that the trackers receive from the state, put the unity of Palestinian society at risk. Ahlam Shibli not only reveals that the trackers pay a high price for being accepted by Israeli society as members of the army, she also demonstrates that the volunteers pay a double price, not only becoming alienated from their own society as a result of their actual military activity but also because of their reward, without gaining real access to another society.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 41–52.
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AHLAM SHIBLI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 41–52.
Ahlam Shibli, Aus der Serie / from the series: Trackers, No. 45, 2005, Digital print, 37 cm × 55,5 cm. -
AHLAM SHIBLI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 41–52.
Ahlam Shibli, Aus der Serie / from the series: Trackers, No. 41, 2005, Digital print, 90 cm × 60 cm. -
AHLAM SHIBLI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 41–52.
Ahlam Shibli, Aus der Serie / from the series: Trackers, No. 38, 2005, Digital print, 37 cm × 55,5 cm. -
AHLAM SHIBLI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 41–52.
Doppelseite / spread: Ahlam Shibli, S. / pp. 50–51.
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Markus Krottendorfer: A Portrait of Photography: Photographed
When you hear that the construction of a megalomaniac power station in China – the Three-Gorges Project, as it is known – will involve demolishing seventeen towns, to be flooded by the masses of water from a 600 km-long reservoir, then this sounds like a mixture of megalomania, power and violence. And when you hear that a young photographer such as Markus Krottendorfer is going there to document these political and geological upheavals, then this might suggest am ambitious, socially critical artist whose works are aimed primarily at raising his hand, camera in hand: every picture a protest. Every document the document of a political act of power on the borderline of the political. All of this appears to be evident in Markus Krottendorfer’s pictures. His eye is trained on the focused detail in the foreground just as much as on the blurred horizon in the panorama shot. What he documents of these towns and people are pictures of departure – traces of zombie architectures buried beneath a political tidal wave that will, one day, only reveal their secrets to underwater archaeologists. I think that Markus Krottendorfer is not only a documentary photographer, recording what cannot be captured on photo, at the same time documenting the utopian core of photography that lies in the utopia of capturing time. We could accompany the political touch with an aesthetic one: what if Markus Krottendorfer were to address precisely those themes for which change and disappearance has become last nature – choosing the Three-Gorges Project because it involves the disappearance of an entire landscape along with its population, culture and history. The limits of the political lie on the borderline of the attempt to escape change. Photography becomes the endower of meaning for this political utopia.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 53–60.
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MARKUS KROTTENDORFER
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 53–60.
Markus Krottendorfer, Das Drei-Schluchten-Projekt / The Three-Gorges Projekt, 2002 – 2004, C-print, 59 cm × 59 cm. -
MARKUS KROTTENDORFER
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 53–60.
Markus Krottendorfer, Kurt Rudolf, 2005, C-print, 96 cm × 70 cm. -
MARKUS KROTTENDORFER
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 53–60.
Doppelseite / spread: Markus Krottendorfer, S. / pp. 58–59. -
MARKUS KROTTENDORFER
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, S. / pp. 53–60.
Markus Krottendorfer, Christian Egger, 2005, C-print, 96 cm × 70 cm.
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Critical Theory of Social Pictures (1)
The two conglomerations of terms in the title – “critical theory” and “social pictures” – are to be understood not as theses but rather as search words. It is by no means agreed whether and how critical theory exists today. Indeed, it is probably even less clear whether contemporary societies may be put into pictures and what kind of pictures these would be: visual? linguistic? statistical? artistic? With regard to the link between the two compound concepts it should be noted in advance that, since its beginnings in the 1930s, critical theory inspired by Marxism has always perceived itself as a theory of the respective society. Questions as to what theory – from the economy to sociology to art and mass culture theory – may imply in this context, and indeed to what extent societies can be apprehended as a whole, have ever been part and parcel of the discussion. Theorists of the interdisciplinary project who were dedicated to the artistic and cultural aspects of society – Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin – focused on the question of the feasibility of pictorial representation of modern societies. They proceeded on the assumption that by applying prevailing concepts and pictures we fail to comprehend social structures and in fact merely reproduce them instead of understanding them in the light of alternative possibilities. Hence, correct pictorial representation is at once depiction and counter-image. And it is in this tension that lies the potential of criticism.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 93/2006, pp. 78–79.
Forum
NIKOLA HANSALIK
TANJA VERLAK
MP_ART
BEATRICE MINDA
ESTHER TEICHMANN
DAVID ELGEA
MARGRET WEBER-UNGER
MICHAELA BRUCKMÜLLER
Exhibitions
Contemporary Arab Representations: The Iraqi Equation
KRYSTIAN WOZNICKI
Simultan. Zwei Sammlungen Österreichischer Fotografie
REINHARD BRAUN
Christopher Williams & Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij
RAINER BELLENBAUM
Zeitgenössisch Eidgenössisch: Photo Suisse
THILO KOENIG
Esra Ersen: Arbeiten / Works 1998 – 2005
MAREN RICHTER
Postmediale Kondition
CHRISTIAN HÖLLER
Joao Penalva
DENISE ROBINSON
Matthew Buckingham: Time Lines
SØNKE GAU
Travelling the Seven Seas and Seven Mountains
SANDRA KRIŽIĆ ROBAN
Zooming Into Focus: Chinese Contemporary Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection
TILMAN BAUMGÄRTEL
Projekt Migration
Mit der Nasenspitze am Nichts. Mark Leckey – Gorgeousness & Gorgeosity
VALERIE HAMMERBACH
Wie man von der Fin-de-Siécle-Stimmung zur neuen Sachlichkeit gelangt. August Sander: Linzer Jahre 1901 – 1909
ANDREA DOMESLE
Zur Tektonik der Geschichte
ULRICH TRAGATSCHNIG
Books
Individuality Makes You Generic. Bernadette Corporation: Pedestrian Cinema
YOANN VAN PARYS
Eva Maria Ocherbauer: la vie et la mort. Fotografien 1983 – 2004
OLIVER KOERNER VON GUSTORF
Justin Clemens, Dominic Pettman: Avoiding the Subject. Media, Culture and the Object
DREHLI ROBNIK
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Fotografie in Österreich
MARGARETHE SZELESS
Michael Schmidt: Irgendwo
CAROLIN FÖRSTER
Neues aus dem Filmmuseum Wien. Alexander Horwath / Michael Loebenstein (Hg.): Peter Tscherkassky. Dziga Vertov: Entuziazm (Simfonija Donbassa)
CHRISTA BLÜMLINGER
Timm Starl: Lexikon zur Fotografie in Österreich 1839 – 1945
FRIEDRICH TIETJEN
Imprint
Publisher: Manfred Willmann. Owner: Verein CAMERA AUSTRIA, Labor für Fotografie und Theorie
All: Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz
Editors Graz: Reinhard Braun, Christine Frisinghelli, Tanja Gassler
Editor Berlin: Maren Lübbke-Tidow
Copy editing: Marie Röbl
Translations: Wilfried Prantner, Richard Watts, John Doherty, Marina Miladinov