Gerti Deutsch/Ilija Trojanow
IMAGINATION AND APPEARANCE

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.

Gerti Deutsch

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.

©Gerti Deutsch

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).

©Thomas Dorn

This exhibition was produced in cooperation with FOTOHOF archiv, Salzburg, where the artist’s estate is managed and maintained.

Each of the speakers chooses a picture from the exhibition and discusses it with the artist before an audience. An open dialogue between various perspectives, with music and inspired by the exhibition.
Jam session for a photojournalist, a visual studies specialist, an estate manager, and a guitarist. Come early for a tour through the exhibition from 6 to 6:30.

Helena Lea Manhartsberger

©Manhartsberger

She is a Vienna-based freelance photographer and multimedia journalist who works internationally. Born in Innsbruck, she studied International Development in Vienna and photography in Aarhus and Yogyakarta. In her work she deals mainly with social issues such as sexuality and identity, migration, armed conflicts, and social movements. She has published in Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, GEO, the British Journal of Photography, and the Financial Times, among others.

Petra Missomelius

©Petra Missomelius

She is a media scholar who researches and teaches in the Department of Media, Society and Communication at the University of Innsbruck. The emphasis of her work is on media theory, image culture and media practices, body and technology theories, media culture, and science/education.

Kurt Kaindl

©Kurt Kaindl

He is a co-founder of FOTOHOF Salzburg, whose archive houses Gerti Deutsch’s estate. As a lecturer he has taught the history and theory of press photography at the University of Salzburg, the University of Munich, and Georgia State University in Atlanta, to name just a few. He curates exhibitions and has published numerous works about the history of photography in Austria, e.g. on Inge Morath, Gerti Deutsch, or Edith Tudor-Hart. A comprehensive body of art-photographic work with publications, some in collaboration with the writer Karl-Markus Gauß.

Manuel de Roo, guitar

©Manuel de Roo

In the INN SITU dialogue he responds to the exchange of the experts. Manuel de Roo is a composer and guitarist, who studied in Innsbruck and at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Since 1997, he has been regularly asked to play with various ensembles, including the Tyrolean State Theater, the Salzburg State Theater, and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Concert tours have included such events as the Salzburg Festival or most recently, along with his chamber music partner Angela Isidora Leal Rojas, the DiabelliSommer festival in Mattsee.