Spring | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Spring’ category

Vienna Albertina: Brigitte Kowanz, light is what she saw

Above/featured: “Light is what we see”, 1994/2019. (A part of Speed of Light/4m with the digits 6-3 appears at the right edge.)

Austrian artist Brigitte Kowanz (1957–2022) held an enduring fascination for light. Light wasn’t simply the medium through which information propagated. Light itself was also a tool and mould for illumination, reflection, and even introspection. There’s something in her light-based artworks which allude not only to her philosophy and worldview, but also to her clear interest for science. Her works also anticipate and explore timely themes, including what it means to live in an information-rich society that fully embraces digital habitats and virtual spaces. There’s a spirit of fun and “lightness” mixed with a serious appreciation for the history of technology with her frequent use of Morse code. To me, Kowanz’s body of work is a wonderful manifestation of the 1964 statement by Canadian philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan: “The medium is the message.”

I arranged my 2025 stay in Vienna to coincide with the final week of the Francesca Woodman exhibition and the beginning of an exhibition on Brigitte Kowanz, both held at the Albertina gallery-museum. Since Kowanz’s passing in 2022, the first major solo exhibition was a retrospective of her work titled “Light is what we see”. The Albertina has fast become a favourite, having seen an exhibition of photographer Gregory Crewdson’s work in the summer of 2024.

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Iris Andraschek in Vienna: telling the city who they are

For me, landmarks – a series of art works, for example – provide a network of “pins” for exploring and discovering parts of a city. That’s been my approach to Vienna’s 23 districts over the last 4 consecutive summers. Adding to the growing mind-map of memories, I’m restored by the excitement of the chase-and-find, among increasingly familiar surroundings and the frequency of new personal encounters.

Austrian artist Iris Andraschek works with photography, drawings. spatial installations, and video to explore and communicate ideas regarding cultural and societal relationships. Throughout Vienna, a number of Andraschek’s works are “visual interventions”, calling direct attention to the under-representation of women in the city’s public spaces.

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Vienna Grinzing Cemetery: Bernhard, Doderer, Ferstel, Mahler, Rosé

Above/featured: Grinzing cemetery, facing southeast. Photo, 26 May 2022.

Opening for its first burial in 1830, the Grinzing Cemetery in Vienna’s 19th district is modest in size, spread over an area of about 4.1 hectares (10 acres) and home to over 5000 graves. I highlight a number of notable people in arts and architecture, including connections with composer Gustav Mahler.

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My Berlin: The Parliament of Trees

Above: “Parlament der Bäume gegen Krieg und Gewalt.”

In Berlin’s government district is a patch of ground – a garden, really, with tall trees and a place that’s easy to overlook. The official name is “Parlament der Bäume gegen Krieg und Gewalt” (Parliament of Trees Against War and Violence), begun by artist Ben Wagin in 1990.

Wagin (1930–2021) began planting trees on land where the former Berlin Wall used to run near the historic Reichstag government building, as authorities began dismantling the physical wall. What remains of Wagin’s experiment is a piece of ground that acts as both memorial to what the Wall represented and fractured, and an aspiration for both modern Germany and Europe.

Of the many trees in this space, 16 of them represent the 16 modern federal states of Germany. There are also slabs of granite on which are engraved the names of the victims of the Wall. The “back” wall is painted with murals and messages, and in between are little paths and flower beds. I think Wagin also wants to remind us that in many parts in Berlin and throughout Germany, the former Wall dividing the city and the two former nations, respectively, have been reclaimed by nature.

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Frankfurt am Main: Frank Family Center at the JMF

Above: “It’s a miracle I’m still alive”, Otto Frank. Photo, 17 Jun 2023 (X70).

Familie Frank Zentrum, Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt

Frank Family Centre, Jewish Museum Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main is a city I’ve visited countless times since 2001, but I hadn’t known until recently that Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were born in Frankfurt am Main, or that their parents, Otto and Edith, had lived in Frankfurt for almost ten years before moving their family to Amsterdam in early-1934. I’ve put together a list of places and traces the Frank family spent and left in Frankfurt am Main.

Here I cast light on the Frank Family Center (FFC), both memorial and historical record of the European-Jewish Frank family which was added to the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt (JMF) in 2020. Having begun in 2012, the Frank Family Center brings together an extensive collection of material belonging to the Frank-Elias families. The archive includes photographs, official documents, hand-written letters, art, books, household items, and furniture. The items provide a glimpse into the lives of the Frank- and Elias-families across Europe; there’s happy times, catastrophe and loss, and the strength gained in survival. The FFC has been designed for the public to view a part of the archive on permanent display in an open museum setting, as well as for research parties to pursue various avenues of academic inquiry.

Upon entry into the space, the first panel includes the following introductory text which I’ve modified to improve clarity.

The Jewish Museum Frankfurt holds a large number of objects belonging to Anne Frank’s family who had lived in Frankfurt for several generations.

Between 1929 and 1933, the entire family departed Frankfurt am Main and established new lives in Basel, Paris, Amsterdam, and London. In 1942 Amsterdam, Otto and Edith Frank, along with their daughters, Margot and Anne, went into hiding to escape imminent deportation. In August 1944, the secret location was revealed to the authorities, and the family was detained, and deported to Auschwitz. Of the four in the family, only Otto Frank survived, who subsequently devoted the rest of his life to acquainting and educating the world with the diary of his murdered daughter, Anne.

In 1933, Anne’s paternal grandmother Alice Frank sold their home in Frankfurt am Main, and moved to Basel to join her daughter, Leni Elias, and her family. Alice was able to take some of the family belongings with her from Frankfurt to Switzerland, including personal photos and documents. Her moving boxes also contained furniture, porcelain, silverware, and paintings. The family’s heritage as documents of their previous lives in Frankfurt was carefully preserved in Basel.

This room of the Frank Family Center provides an introduction to this family heritage and to the history of the Frank and Elias families.

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