Come see the exhibition Street Life Photography in Vienna 70 years of Street Photography

CultureLifestyleJanuary 23, 2020

Vienna is much more than its famous painters and waltz; it is also the place to see fantastic contemporary photo exhibitions like Street Life Photography at the Kunst Haus Wien.

Natan Dvir, Juicy Couture 01, 2008 @ Natan Dvir

Until the 16th of February, Street Life Photography is showing seventy years of street photography, from international icons like Diane Arbus and Robert Frank to young, contemporary artists like the Austrian Lies Maculan and Alex Dietrich.

Street photography is one of the favourite subjects of the 20th and 21st centuries, so much as to become a genre of its own.

The reason we love these shoots is that the instant the street photographer decides to capture an image; the city’s streets become the stage and the passers-by, the stars. Fleeting moments, looks or expressions are immortalised through the lens of photographers, which allows us to see the world through their eyes.

Instead of showing the works in chronological order, Verena Kaspar-Eisert and Sabine Schnakenberg, the curators of the Street Life Photography exhibition decided to divide the photos into five themes. The more than 200 pictures are separated in Street Life, Crashes, Public Transfer, Anonymity, and Alienation clusters. In each segment, they juxtaposed pictures by photographers from different times and with different styles, which makes it even more fascinating.

Axel Schön, Untitled, 1933 @ Axel Schön

You can clearly see the radical changes in street photography from the early days of analogue black and white pictures in the ‘30s to today’s digital photography. Interestingly, not only the way artists have shot the photographs changed but also their aesthetic and vision.

Street Life Photography is at Kunst Haus Wien, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13, 1030. Until 16th February 2020.

Mikro Martin, untitled, 2006 – 2011 @ Mikro Martin

And since you’re at the Kunst Haus, I strongly recommend you get the combination ticket and also visit the Hundertwasser Museum. And do make a pit stop at the cute cafe restaurant at the Kunst Haus Wien that has Hundertwasser’s unmistakable style; multicolours, irregular and soft edges and plenty of green.

Title photo: by Loredana Nemes from her series Underground, 2005 – 2006. All photos Courtesy of Kunst Haus Wien

CS


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