Salon of Photography

The oldest surviving photograph was made by Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), marking the beginning of an epochal media invention that, originating with photography, has expanded into the broad field of “lens-based media” and continues to shape our perception of the world—today more than ever. His View from the Window at Le Gras (1826) has become an iconic metaphor for a functionality inherent to the new medium: visually fixing the outside world through an apparently objective apparatus, thereby making it comprehensible in a new way.
We want to celebrate the milestone of “200 Years of Photography” with an exhibition that offers an engaging and humorous glimpse into the studios of Salzburg photographers. The exhibition concept is based on an invitation to each artist to identify the earliest work within their own oeuvre and make it available for the exhibition, either as a vintage print or as a reconstruction.
The curatorial idea is founded on the assumption that this approach will make visible and open to discussion the diverse starting points and artistic concepts from which each photographer’s subsequent body of work developed. The number of participants will determine the form of the presentation: a “Salon de Paris” of the 19th century, characterized by an excessive spatial and conceptual concentration of highly diverse personalities and formal approaches.
2026 also marks the 45th anniversary of FOTOHOF, which has thus accompanied almost a quarter of the period since the invention of the medium. We are delighted to celebrate this (small) anniversary with a kind of community project bringing together Salzburg’s photographic artists.