There is something very particular about the light in Vienna and it was this particularity which provided the motivation behind Oberdanner’s first book entitled Wien (Fotohof edition 2001). The book was all about portraying the special atmosphere created by this soft, very colour-friendly light. In this second book the city that gave rise to psychoanalysis is itself on the couch. And its revelations are quite uninhibited. We get a glimpse of what’s actually behind the façade of postcards and guide books. We get to see the bare-branched parks mantled in slushy snow, the white doors so typical of Gründerzeit apartments, and the imitation wooden seats on trams. There’s a rampant potted Swiss cheese plant abandoned on the pavement with a note that says Gratis. There’s a sphinx tamely tethered by workmen’s two-tone tape. Some of the narrative is also in series. For instance the diggers chewing their way through old buildings, with high-rises later sprouting from the rubble. And park trees reduced to stumps. The images appear unembellished, almost casual, with any distance lost. And that’s precisely how the city feels.

Annelies Oberdanner, *1961 in Innsbruck, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna.