Signs and Advertisements »…His work on signs and advertisements contradicts any one – dimensional reading of the apocryphal language of the public Meta-Poetry…« (Thomas Miessgang)

As sensitive as Paul Albert Leitner is to the poetry of everyday life, he is matter-of-fact and objective in his photographic approach, and something of a documentarist. In his new art book he takes a look at signs and advertising. On countless journeys in Europe and its post-socialist fringes, in the Hispanic world, in New York’s urban space and the American south, Leitner finds images of at times seductive, at times repugnant, nostalgic-romantic or turbo-capitalist billboards, advertising hoardings and other public signs.

He is not, however, a travel photographer, someone attracted by the exotic in foreign climes. The individual photo is actually the poetry, with narratives, personal autobiographical and entire world histories created as a series of images or book. In 0 – 24 Leitner frees the façades of their imposed clarity, literally revealing their concrete form and colour. Like Atget he opens up the surreal levels inherent to economic activities that appear to be so targeted.

Paul Albert Leitner, *1957 in Jenbach (Austria); lives and works in Vienna.