Portrait – Photographs is the first comprehensive monograph of the Austrian photographer Bernhard Fuchs, who is currently living in Düsseldorf. Since the early nineties, Fuchs has been working on a group of photographs focussing on people in their ancestral environment. It is a positioning of different age groups, beginning with an emphasis on youth which also mirrors Bernhard Fuchs’ path from his home in the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria to a large German city. Timm Starl, a well-known photo publicist, comments on the particularity of the people portrayed: “…. the are pausing, holding on for a moment, they appear open and reserved at the same time. They do not flinch – as if they decided to have their photo taken although they know full well that they will thereby only disclose their outward appearance. They gaze into the photographer’s direction, but they do not observe him working. They register what is happening without expecting any surprises. they let him have his way, resting in themselves in a special manner and radiating with self-evident certainty. In spite of that, or rather, precisely because of that, they are all what they are: unique, special, unmistakable.”

Bernhard Fuchs, * 1971 in Haslach a.d. Mühl, Austria. Lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.