Archive

vienna contemporary 2017

To mark the 70th anniversary of the legendary photography agency Magnum, OstLicht presents a tribute to the multifaceted perspective of photojournalism. The artistic freedom and autonomy claimed by the agency's founders not only paved the way for photography into galleries and museums but also initiated an entirely new photographic view of the world, where facts are brought to life through the subjective sensitivity of the photographers. Without this visual revolution, the unmistakable aesthetics of Stefanie Moshammer’s work, a rising star in Austrian photography, would also be unthinkable. In addition to a selection from her Land of Black Milk series, OstLicht will present works from her latest project at the viennacontemporary. Jacob Aue Sobol’s images along the Trans-Siberian Railway and Hiroshi Kubota’s photographs from China are compelling engagements with the countries they depict. Similarly intense, yet highly individual, William Klein and Wim Wenders offer their takes on the American way of life. Close observation of people, being ready when the masks fall or the staging reaches its climax, is one of the most delicate tasks in photography. The presentation includes portraits of masters of self-presentation—from Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol to Muhammad Ali and Salvador Dalí—captured by equally renowned names behind the camera, including Inge Morath, Eve Arnold, and Robert Capa. Bruce Davidson, represented with a backstage shot of Marilyn Monroe, will be a guest at the ViennaPhotoBookFestival co-organized by OstLicht in June. The staging of intimacy is a theme in Nobuyoshi Araki’s Polaroids.