In her in-depth exploration of Las Vegas, young Austrian photographer Stefanie Moshammer created an extensive series of photographs which she has now compiled most successfully into a photo book published by FOTOHOF>EDITION in May 2015.
Las Vegas is a “Disneyland for adults“, an entirely artificial city nicknamed Sin City set in the Mojave Desert and once renowned as a Mafia stronghold, its existence a sort of brightly coloured parallel universe alongside the rest of America. Las Vegas is an epicentre of oddities, bereft of evolved urban culture or traditional legacy, a settlement agglomeration doubling up as a gigantic amusement park. And it was here, in this controversial setting, that Stefanie Moshammer spent two months with her camera working on Vegas and She, a fascinating – and darkly disturbing – portrait of this art(ificial) city and its inhabitants.
People are the focal point of Stefanie Moshammer’s photographs, concentrating as they do on details, colours and compositions. They depict the glaringly garish night-shade world of adult entertainment and strippers, where sex is for sale. Fascinated by America’s (image) culture, Moshammer proceeds confidently and playfully in her series, wittily referencing William Eggleston while developing her own idiosyncratic idiom. For her, the nature of photography is engaging with the world, and she does so at the interface between art and documentary photography: seeking out the oddities to be found in life and holding a mirror up to the world.

“Water just burns if you put some fuel inside.“