Fotohof Salzburg presents Annelies Oberdanner / Ingeborg Strobl photographs exhibition

Fotohof Salzburg presentss Annelies Oberdanner / Ingeborg Strobl an exhibition on view through 13 July 2013.

Annelies Oberdanner and Ingeborg Strobl do not regard themselves as photographers in the traditional sense; rather, they are both visual artists with an oeuvre spanning multiple genres. Photography is used time and again in conjunction with other artistic mediums; rarely is the single image conceived without its setting. The auratic singular photograph plays a subordinate role. Both artists have a preference for series: some combined with texts in artist’s books (Oberdanner, Strobl), others associated with sculptures in exhibition installations (Oberdanner).

In terms of content the exhibition at the Fotohof Salzburg is designed as a dialogue on our perception of the unspectacular, the incidental and the ephemeral. It is an approach founded on both artists’ extensive archives of photographs. Both seem to share a particular attitude towards the world, one which results in contemplative, but also alert and empathetic observation, in common for instance with the “collector” Agnès Varda. In fact, it is no coincidence that Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse is a film both women artists like very much.

Another area of consensus the two artists share in their fundamental approach is a mistrust of strategies of overwhelming, overabundance and breathtaking perfection. Both their idioms are far softer, their visual presence more restrained and unobtrusive – and unfussy. The small format predominates. At no point does the viewer feel harried by the exhibits on show on the gallery’s bright and open premises. www.fotohof.at