Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria, volume 22

Edited by Monika Faber for Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna, and Walter Moser for the Photographic Collection of the Albertina, Vienna

In November 1922, in the midst of the economic crisis, Vienna knows only one topic of conversation: Anita Berber and her dances of vice, horror, and ecstasy. Together with her partner Sebastian Droste, she brings taboo subjects such as drug abuse, suicide and homosexual desire to the stage. To promote the scandal-ridden program, the duo steps in front of Madame d’Ora’s camera. For years, Berber has been working with the Viennese portrait photographer to stage their sophisticated play of calculated shock and dance art. These darkly dramatic photographs illustrate not only numerous newspaper articles, but also Berber’s only publication. In it, she provides insight into her world of thought, criticizes the hysteria surrounding her person, and at the same time fires it up anew. In Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy. Anita Berber in Vienna 1922, Magdalena Vuković examines in detail the photographic collaboration between d’Ora and Anita Berber. In addition, historian Matthias Marschik describes the role of the exceptional publisher Leo Schidrowitz in connection with Berber’s and Droste’s book. Literary scholar Ralf Georg Czapla analyzes the poems of the two, Droste’s years of activity as a lyricist, and his literary models. Agnes Kern sets out on a search for queer traces, not in the biography, but in the artistic work of Berber and Droste.

Magdalena Vuković is curator for photography at Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna.