INNSBRUCK.- A dark, empty room. The writer Ilija Trojanow describes an unseen photograph. As we listen, the image forms within us. He hear him talk about a high wall, and we imagine a high wall. We hear him describe a classroom, and in our minds we furnish this room with the benches and green chalkboard of our memories. Then the photograph is revealed and we realize there are three images: the image within us, the image as the writer sees it, and the photograph as it now appears before our eyes. A game that plays with perception. Amazed, perhaps a bit startled, we realize how much the wall and the classroom differ from the irrefutable document of the photograph. An astonishing lesson about that which we all are well aware of, but which seems to be quickly forgotten in political discourse: there are as many realities as there are perceivers. Each of us sees the same thing and construes it differently. What helps us as a society is to be aware of this.
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The images in this exhibition were taken by the Austrian-British photographer Gerti Deutsch. Having fled Vienna as a Jew in the 1930s to escape the rise of National Socialism, she quickly established herself as a successful photojournalist in London. She reported from Japan, France, and Italy, and various trips always led her back to Tyrol and Vorarlberg. During a stay of several months in the mountain farming village of Alpbach, she extensively documented the local day-to-day life of that time. These and other pictures are being shown for the first time as part of the INN SITU series. The focus of the show is on noncommissioned works that formally and aesthetically extend beyond their time. Enlarged contact sheets reveal the photographer to be a virtuoso of image composition. Along with the Magnum photographer Inge Morath, Gerti Deutsch ranks as one of the most important early figures in the history of Austrian-British art photography.
Ilija Trojanow was born in Bulgaria. In 1971, he fled with his family to Germany via Yugoslavia and Italy. After moving to various places around the world, he now lives in Vienna. His multifaceted work ranges from the poetic novel to the militant essay. His most recent publications are “Tausend und ein Morgen” (S. Fischer) and “Das Buch der Macht” (Die Andere Bibliothek).
This exhibition was produced in cooperation with FOTOHOF archiv, Salzburg, where the artist’s estate is managed and maintained.
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