Punctum. Young Austrian Photographers
Rolf Aigner, Siegrun Appelt, Max Aufischer, Gottfried Bechtold, Walter Berger, Sabine Bitter, Linda Christanell, Heinz Cibulka, Inge Dick, Peter Dressler, Walter Ebenhofer, VALIE EXPORT, Magdalena Frey, Padhi Frieberger, Harald Gsaller, Bodo Hell, Dieter Huber, Rainer Iglar, Birgit Jürgenssen, Kurt Kaindl, Leo Kandl, Erich Kees, Herwig Kempinger, Klaus Peter Knoll, Aglaia Konrad, Elisabeth Kraus, Richard Kriesche, Margherita Krischanitz, Friedl Kubelka, Martina Kudlacek, Rupert Larl, Paul Albert Leitner, Branko Lenart, Erich Lessing, Maria-Theresia Litschauer, Kurt Matt, Michael Mauracher, Wilfried Mayrus, Elfriede Mejchar, Walter K. Mirtl, Michaela Moscouw, Ona B., Hanns Otte, Anton Palacios Nuñez, Pilo Pichler, Margot Pilz, Trude Rind, Helmut Schäffer, Fritz Simak, Andrea Sodomka, Peter Starchel, Sylvia Taraba, Otmar Thormann, Christian Wachter, Josef Wais, Nikolaus Walter, Jana Wisniewski, Manfred Willmann, Michael Wrobel, Robert Zahornicky
The exhibition “Punctum” brings together 61 portraits of the most important contemporary Austrian photographers and photo artists.
The FOTOHOF turned ten this year. In this decade we have endeavoured to establish the medium of photography as an art form in its various forms in Salzburg and Austria. Without wanting to be unfaithful to this tradition, the current exhibition for once gives less space to the declared intention of art, but rather unfolds other, more original charms of the medium of photography: the charm of the coincidental and innocently authentic, the melancholy of carefully found objects, the touching of another time.
The invitation to participate in the exhibition was addressed to a representative selection of Austrian photographers. The brief was to send us a picture that shows the actors:inside today as children. In the subtitle of the exhibition we introduced a central concept from Barthes’ “Bright Chamber”, the PUNCTUM: “The punctum of a photograph, that is the randomness of it, which captivates me (but also wounds me, hits me.) ( … ). Often the punctum is a “detail”, that is, a part of what is depicted. To give examples of the punctum is, in a way, to give oneself away.” Our hypothesis was that captivating images could be obtained by personalities who were experienced in the use of photography looking for their image, as a self-portrait, as it were, but that special medial qualities would become visible beyond the pure image.