On the occasion of a generous donation of 80 framed photographs by Paul Albert Leitner to the FOTOHOF>ARCHIVE—cityscapes, landscapes, street scenes, self-portraits—a representative overview of the work of this great Austrian photographer is showcased.

With irony and wit, he often appears in his own images: “Me, myself in a hotel“—the hotel room as the quintessential transitory space—always with precise image legends, concretely named with name and room number, place and time—becomes the stage for the staging of conscious lingering, of the here and now. Leitner, an art figure in changing episodes of life through his images, is a master at seeing the shimmer in the everyday, at recognizing the moment as glamorous. As sensitive as he is to the poetry in the everyday, so concrete and factual is Leitner in his photographic stance, essentially a documentarist. He showcases the beauty and oddity of the world; and also unveils the magic of photography: His shots are testimonies to the uniqueness of constellations and the preciousness of fleeting moments.