Austria | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Austria’ category

25 for 25: fotoeins fotos in 2025

Above/featured: “Göttin” (goddess), by AlfAlfA, also known as Nicolás Sánchez, for One Wall 2017. Photo, 17 Jun 2025 (P15).

In continuation of high spirits and enthusiastic support of leading choices, I’m very grateful to significant time spent:

in the Bay Area, to visit mum’s family in Sacramento and long-time friends in the South Bay;
in Vienna for the 4th consecutive summer; and
in Berlin for the 1st time in 4 years, as set up for a repeat in the new year.

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Vienna in (the) 5: artist Julia Bugram

(“Raising Hands”)

The sculpture provided the introduction three years ago. Two clasped hands, each as tall as a person. Each hand made of 1-million 1-Eurocent coins. Seen in 2022, next to St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Seen next in 2023, the sculpture moved near the big fountain at Schwarzenbergplatz. A wonderful crowdfunded project, created by Austrian artist Julia Bugram.

This past spring, I receive a kind invitation to visit her studio. It’s July and I’m in Vienna’s 5th district. I make my way up to the 2nd floor of an “Altbau”, and arrive at a cozy working art-space shared between Julia and another artist.

Julia is presently exploring themes surrounding community and society; and how art can create, enhance, and strengthen connections among people. Artistic influences include: Hilma af Klimt, Mela Diamant, Renate Bertlmann, Margot Pilz, Jakob Lena Knebl, Martha Jungwirth. Her “Raising Hands” sculpture is presently in storage, waiting for new benefactors and fresh eyes.

We spoke at some length about the economic and cultural challenges contemporary Austrian artists face in the creation and distribution of their work, as well as the difficulty of commuting between Vienna and her home in Burgenland. Despite challenges, I’m looking forward to seeing what she’ll create in the near future.

Links to her website and Instagram.

*Working art space shared by Julia Bugram and Elisabeth Hansa. (I’ve greyed out their contact numbers.)*

Julia’s recent book with images of her recent art pieces, including extensive discussion and the context of her work: “Widerstand & Neugierde: Kunst, die Veränderung fordert.” (Resistance & Curiosity: art that demands change).

*Most who directly supported the publishing her book are from Vienna, other parts of Austria, and Europe.*

Her triptych creation, “Fut – Mut – Wut”, presented here in alphabetical order with carefully selected wallpaper-like background motifs. Three words of equal length that rhyme, each word an expression of an essential facet or dimension for a woman.

*Defiance and empowerment, body autonomy, questioning the gaze, control of their own narratives*.

*Many of the pieces on the wall include sketches of plants, emphasizing her desire to commune with and derive inspiration from nature.*

My thanks to Julia for her invitation and her time. I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 11 July 2025. I received neither support nor compensation for this piece. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

Vienna: space invaders in the capital

Above: WN_31 at the corner of Ballgasse and Rauhensteingasse, 9 July 2024 (P15).

Don’t worry: it’s not 1529, nor is it 1683, and there are no bands of marauders on horseback arriving for a large and lengthy siege. This also does not include anything from outside the Solar System. Instead, this is about a human artist and their little creations sprinkled throughout the Austrian capital city. In fact, I’d claim their “invasion” has already succeeded.

When a wae lad was I, the video game Space Invaders was a kind of dawn, an opening to a brand new world. The lasting effects snuck into many aspects of life, including the time I dedicated to the learning, pursuit, and practice of science. In time, a video game about a battle to ward off waves of little aliens required the purchase of a large bulky black console, accompanied by a large bulky black joystick with a big red button. In the decades since, the technological leap into the first-quarter of the 21st-century means that Space Invaders is available as an online web-application, easily called upon anytime on demand.

In Vienna, the sight of little aliens prompted immediate personal curiosity, and I spent parts of three consecutive summers wandering the streets to find as many possible little “visitors”.

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Vienna: Johann Strauss II, traces & places

Above: Danube river at dusk, facing southeast from Brigittenauer Sporn. Photo, 11 Jun 2022 (X70).

Vienna is a historical city of music with the likes of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and more. In the mid- to late-19th century, the Strauss family of composers created a dominant scene in Viennese waltz (Wiener Waltz). Johann Strauss II’s “An der schönen blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) is one of the best-known compositions of classical music. The song was used famously in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “2001: A Space Odyssey“.

And as in the movie, the soaring feelings of hopeful anticipation during the spacecraft’s journey and docking with the spinning space station have become as routine as my arrival onto Viennese shores from the other side of the big eastern pond. I rely on Vienna to provide the gravity to maintain balance and spirit; this much has stayed true over multiple consecutive summers.

I’ve spent over 100 total days in Vienna, explored many of her streets and districts, and walked hundreds of kilometres. Efforts to immerse myself in various types of the city’s art and architecture have been accompanied by the sounds of brass horns and sweeping strings in a back-and-forth “dance” that spans the entire city. There’s new opportunity to learn about the song’s composer who was born, raised, studied, worked, and died in the Austrian capital city.

With the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss II’s birth in 2025, the city of Vienna celebrates the occasion with a multitude of arts and culture events over the entire 2025 year.

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Rathauspark, Rathaus, WienLiebe, Stadt Wien, Vienna, Wien, Österreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

24 for 24: Foto(ein)s in 2024

Above/featured: “Hashtag Wienliebe” (Vienna love), Rathauspark. Photo, 15 Jul 2024 (P15).

2024 has been an interesting year of personal challenge and discovery. A conclusion for the family house provided fresh impetus to inhabit (in the short term) new spaces and places to improve overall health and happiness. In Vienna, I spent a full month for the third consecutive summer. Yes, it was continent hot, but time in the Austrian capital was both glorious and productive as expected. In Calgary is a city I hadn’t visited in many decades, and I witnessed a very happy aunt surrounded by many family members on her centenary year. In California’s Bay Area is a place where I hadn’t set foot in over ten years, but whose daily temperatures and chances of consistent sun offer a higher level of content.

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