Matthias Herrmann’s latest artist’s book is based on more than two years of research into the powerful rulers of Mantua in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Gonzagas, and their superlative art collection. Herrmann presented the results of his art-historical examination of a collection now scattered throughout the world in an artistic intervention as eight isole (islands), both on site at the Palazzo Duale and at the Traklhaus in Salzburg. He appropriated a number of the works from the historical collection as photographs, thereby ‘returning’ them to their place of origin. For the others, he ‘found’ artworks that are related to them in one way or another. This type of photography is new in the work of Matthias Herrmann. Just as, in the past, he originally featured his own body, in this series (as a sort of interpretive documentation) he has chosen to showcase e.g. a house, significant works of art, but also his own works in a museum context.

Matthias Herrmann, *1963 in Munich, Germany. Lives and works in Vienna.

Insert: Bernhard Kleber