Photography and light are as closely connected as telephones and sound. Light is not only a precondition for every photographic image and respectively manifested in the name of the medium, it is also responsible for the decisive developments in the area of photography. However light neither was, nor is, just the precondition for making a photograph but also always a challenge too. And, in the area of art in particular, where reference is often made to the surrounding circumstances of the medium, light is one of the many-sided components of photography that encourage reflection. In the FOTOGALERIE WIEN’s special focus for this year Light is once again the actor at the centre of our attention. In the three exhibitions, Light Experiments, Light Spaces and Light Qualities it plays both an ideal and formative role – light as a phenomenon, as the contrast with darkness, as a subject and a motif and also its influence and direct effect on what is depicted and the materials employed. How can light be fixed and rendered visible? How can it be installed in a space? What qualities of light are we talking about? Which sources? Temperatures? And how subjective is our perception in comparison to what the equipment records?
(textliche Betreuung: Ruth Horak)
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10. May 2016 — 11. June 2016
In the first part of the trilogy, Light Experiments , the immediate effect of the interaction of light, various sources of light and light sensitive material can be observed in both simple and convincing experimental set ups as well as in more complex and intensive ones [...] -
30. August 2016 — 1. October 2016
In the second part of the Light trilogy the focus is on Light Spaces. In a similar way to how Gilles Deleuze described motion in the pictorial field of film, Light Spaces should be understood as "light catchers" in which the light is not only free to react and develop but also where it finds limits and stability. [...] -
22. November 2016 — 14. January 2017
Henry Fox Talbot appended an important coda to photography: it was, he said, a self-image of nature that ‘was obtained by nothing more than the mere action of light’. In the third part of the exhibition series, Light, this is taken – at least in part – quite literally. Light with its incredibly atmospheric qualities becomes the main actor – moonlight or sunlight, the effects of the sun’s position and season, artificial light sources or light as set decoration. [...]