Press Release Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa · Photography, experimental film, media art —Lisl Ponger’s œuvre is between the foreign and the native and familiar. The Museum

Museum der Moderne – Rupertinum Betriebsgesellschaft mbH FN 2386452 Firmenbuchgericht Salzburg

1/2 Press Release Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography

Press Mönchsberg 32 5020 Salzburg Austria T +43 662 842220-601 F +43 662 842220-700 [email protected] www.museumdermoderne.at

Photography, experimental film, media art—Lisl Ponger’s œuvre is unusually variegated. Her work insistently probes the relationship between the foreign and the native and familiar. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg now surveys the art of the 2017 Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography honoree in a comprehensive exhibition on two gallery floors at the Rupertinum. Salzburg, 30 November 2018. Lisl Ponger (b. Nuremberg, DE, 1947) launched her career as a film and photography artist in the early 1970s. In staged photographic pieces such as La Catrina (2013) and Teilnehmende Beobachterin (2016), Ponger pinpoints the ways in which stereotypes, racist ideas, and scopic constructions that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century have persisted and even thrived in photography. She is also a collector, gathering objects of Western vernacular culture and trinkets from tourist souvenir shops that reveal the Western engagement with foreign cultures for her fictional Museum MuKul (Museum for Foreign and Familiar Cultures). Divided into three sections, her exhibition Professione: fotografa will showcase numerous major photographic tableaus and a selection of early films as well as objects and sculptures from the Museum MuKul. Also on display will be the installation The Master Narrative und Don Durito, which Ponger created for the reopening of the Weltmuseum, Vienna, in 2017. The title she chose for her show is an allusion to Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 motion picture Professione: reporter, which examines epistemological problems and questions of personal responsibility as well as the relationship between the artist and his creation. “As we worked closely with Lisl Ponger to design this extensive survey exhibition, we were struck again and again by the extraordinary and interdisciplinary complexity of her creative thinking. I am also especially pleased that she produced a new series of photographs for Salzburg that will make its public debut in the show,” notes Christiane Kuhlmann, curator of photography and media art and a member of the jury for the 2017 Otto Breicha Award for Photography.

Press Release Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 1 December 2018―24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2]

2/2 Press Release Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography

Press T +43 662 842220-601 F +43 662 842220-700 [email protected] www.museumdermoderne.at

2017 Otto Breicha Award for Photography—Jury statement The Museum der Moderne Salzburg was one of the first institutions in Austria to promote photography as an art form. The foundation for its extensive photography collection was laid in 1981, two years before the museum opened its doors to the public in 1983. With the holdings of the Austrian Federal Photography Collection, which have been entrusted to its care, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg has the world’s single largest collection of art photography from Austria. Since 1983, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg has given out a biennial photography award. Co-funded by the Breicha family and billed as the “Otto Breicha Award for Photography—Museum der Moderne Salzburg” since 2007, the award honors an artist born or based in Austria. It includes a prize money of € 5,000 and a solo exhibition. In a statement, the judges—Christa Breicha, Leo Kandl (winner of the 2015 Otto Breicha Award), Monika Faber (Institut Bonartes, Vienna), and Christiane Kuhlmann (Museum der Moderne Salzburg)—explain their decision to give the 2017 award to Lisl Ponger: “Lisl Ponger’s oeuvre stands out for its abundance of themes and techniques. A photographer, experimental filmmaker, media artist, and writer, she uses both still and moving images to explore the culture of ‘foreignness,’ scrutinizing different ideas of what makes a place home and questioning the tenor of ethnographic displays in museums and exhibitions. With its highly original content and visual aesthetic, her work is unique in the canon of Austrian art.” The publication accompanying the exhibition will be presented at an event held in cooperation with FOTOHOF Salzburg on 23 February 2019, at 2 p.m. Lisl Ponger will be present. Publication: Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto-Breicha-Preis für Fotokunst ed. Museum der Moderne Salzburg With essays by Christiane Kuhlmann and Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll and a preface by Thorsten Sadowsky Softcover, 23.2 x 17.4 cm, ca. 128 pages, ca. 75 illustrations German / English ISBN 978-3-902993-73-1 FOTOHOF edition, Salzburg, 2019 € 25 Curator: Christiane Kuhlmann, Curator Photography and Media Art, with Andrea Lehner-Hagwood, Curatorial Assistant


1/2 Press Images Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography


The use of visual material is permitted exclusively in connection with coverage of the exhibition and with reference to the cited picture captions and copyrights. No work may be cut nor altered in any way. Download: http://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/press/overview/ Username: press Password: 456789

Press Images Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 1 December 2018―24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2]

Lisl Ponger Geisterbeschwörung, 2012 (Necromancy) Chromogenic print © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

Lisl Ponger Untitled, 2013 From the series La Catrina or another Mexican Afternoon Chromogenic print © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

Lisl Ponger Untiteld, 2018 From the series Professione: fotografa Chromogenic print © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

2/2 Press Images Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography


Lisl Ponger Untitled, 2018 From the series Professione: fotografa Chromogenic print © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

Lisl Ponger Teilnehmende Beobachterin, 2016 (Participant Observer) Chromogenic print, lightbox © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

Lisl Ponger Textile from Zinacantán, Mexico Illustration from the catalog © Lisl Ponger

Lisl Ponger Out of Austria, 2000 Chromogenic print © Lisl Ponger / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018


1/2 Exhibition Views Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017


Exhibition Views Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 1 December 2018―24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2]

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Exhibition view Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 © Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Photo: Rainer Iglar



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2/2 Exhibition Views Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017



Figurines from Lisl Ponger‘s MuKul museum Miniatures, dyed rattan, plastic, ca. 2010 Provenance unknown, Exhibition view Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 © Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Photo: Rainer Iglar

Mönchsberg 32 5020 Salzburg Austria T +43 662 842220-101 F +43 662 842220-700 [email protected] www.museumdermoderne.at

1/1 Introtext Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017

Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 1 December 2018―24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2] Introtext The Museum der Moderne Salzburg has given out a biennial photography award since 1983. Billed as the “Rupertinum Photo Prize” until 2001 and renamed “Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography—Museum der Moderne Salzburg” in 2007, it honors an artist born or living in Austria who has made significant contributions to fine art photography. The Vienna-based artist Lisl Ponger (1947 Nuremberg, DE,) is the winner of the 2017 Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography. Professione: fotografa, the title of her exhibition, is borrowed from Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Professione: reporter. The 1975 thriller is a probing exploration of epistemological problems, questions of responsibility, and the relation between artist and work—a visual discourse on the deceptiveness of the real and the reality of fiction. Ponger pursues a similar approach. Since the 1970s, she has examined persistent ideas about foreign as well as familiar cultures that first emerged in the nineteenth century. Manufactured and circulated through film and photography, these ideas also manifest themselves in everyday interactions. Photography was the first and most important medium that transmitted the “new world” into people’s homes while conversely letting them assert their own world’s supremacy. Photography studios and publishers found that the exotic was excellent business—and it still is, as tourist souvenir stores and the gift shops of ethnographic museums illustrate. The adventure movie genre is another salient vehicle for the mass dissemination of stereotypical notions about faraway cultures. In her staged photographs and the objects on display in her fictional museum MuKul, the artist presents miscellaneous evidence of where and how this Western gaze on non-European cultures is operative today. Divided into three chapters, the exhibition opens with recently completed photographic tableaus. A selection from Ponger’s experimental films is shown in a separate screening room. The installation The Master Narrative und Don Durito (2017), which Ponger conceived for the Weltmuseum, Vienna, rounds out the presentation in the second-floor galleries.

Mönchsberg 32 5020 Salzburg Austria T +43 662 842220-101 F +43 662 842220-700 [email protected] www.museumdermoderne.at

1/2 Biography Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017

Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 1 December 2018―24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2] BIOGRAPHY Lisl Ponger (1947 Nuremberg, DE) is concerned with the construction of cultural identity, stereotypical ideas and perceptions of the 'other' and related questions of pictorial representation. In her artistic works, she deals with the disciplines of ethnology and anthropology, their methods and policies in the collection and exhibition practice of ethnological museums. Solo exhibitions (selection) 2017 The Master Narrative. Presentation of the MuKul (Museum für

fremde und vertraute Kulturen) at the Weltmuseum Vienna, AT 2014 Schöne Fremde, Kirchner Museum Davos, CH

Presentation of the MuKul at the Secession, Vienna 2010 Werkschau XV, Fact or Truth, Fotogalerie Wien, AT 2008 Lasst tausend Blumen blühen, Kunsthaus Dresden, DE 2007 Imago Mundi, Landesgalerie Linz, AT 1999 Xenografische Ansichten, Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève,

Genf/Geneva, CH 1993 Fremdes Wien, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, AT Group exhibitions (selection) 2018 Die neunziger Jahre, MUSA, Wien Museum, Vienna 2017 Österreich Fotografie. 1970–2000, Albertina, Vienna, AT (2018

Museum der Moderne Salzburg, AT) The Szechwan Tale, Anren Biennale, Anren, CN

2016 „Eldorado Task Force“, in: Erzähl mir Salzburg, Salzburg Museum, AT

2012 Die Nacht im Zwielicht, Belvedere, Wien, AT Dark Side of the Moon, 9th Baltic Biennale of Contemporary Art, Szczecin, PL Gata le nna, Walk with me, The Bioscope, Johannesburg, ZA

2011 Innenwelten. Erinnerung, Nostalgie,Exotik, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum, DE

2008 Recollecting. Raub und Restitution, MAK, Vienna, AT 2006 Orientalism & Ephemera, Ottawa Art Gallery, CA 2004 Destiny Deacon / Lisl Ponger, Salzburger Kunstverein, AT 2002 Documenta11, Kassel, DE

2/2 Biography Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017

Film festivals and screenings (selection) 2014 Vienna Unveiled: A City in Cinema, MoMA, New York, NY, US 2007 documenta 12, Filmprogramm, Kassel, DE 2006 Cinemateca Argentina, Buenos Aires, AR 2005 48th San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco, SF,

US Cinéma du Réel, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR

2004 Festival des Films du Monde de Montréal, CA International Film Festival Rotterdam, NL

2002 Los Angeles Filmforum, LA, US Cork Film Festival, Cork, IE Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, DE

2001 An Evening with Lisl Ponger, Cineprobe, MoMA, New York, NY, US 2000 Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, CH

Dokumentarfilmfestival, München/Munich, DE 1995 Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, US 1992 Bilbao Film Festival, ES

Feminale, Köln/Cologne, DE 1988 Das Licht der Peripherie, 20er Haus, Wien/Vienna, AT 1987 Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, DE 1985 The Kitchen, New York, NY, US 1984 Österreichische Filmtage, Wels, AT 1982 Retrospective International, Bologna, IT 1979 Filmmuseum, Wien/Vienna, AT

1/4 List of Works Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa. Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017

Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa Otto Breicha Prize for Artistic Photography 2017 1 December 2018—24 March 2019 Rupertinum [1] & [2] Works in the exhibition Works are listed in chronological order. Original titles are in italics. Dimensions are given as height by width by depth. Lisl Ponger 1947 Nuremberg, DE—Vienna, AT Photographs Viennese Naschmarkt, ca. 1968 Gelatin silver prints on baryta paper 3 each 10.15 x 7.95 in. (25,8 x 20,2 cm) 2 each 6.77 x 10.15 in. (17,2 x 25,8 cm) 2 each 6.80 x 10.11 in. (17,4 x 25,7 cm) 7.67 x 10.11 in. (19,5 x 25,7 cm) 7.40 x 97.63 in. (17,8 x 24,8 cm) Museum der Moderne Salzburg GF 905_1-8_1,3,4,5,6 / GB 79_1-6_3,4,5,6 Out of Austria, 2000 Chromogenic print 49.60 x 40.15 in. (126 x 102 cm) Austrian Federal Photography Collection at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg Die Beute, 2006 Chromogenic print 49.60 x 61.41 in. (126 x 156 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna En Couleur, 2007 Chromogenic print 21.62 x 31.50 in. (60 x 80 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Professione: turista, 2009 11 chromogenic prints 16.33 x 20.27 in. (41,5 x 51,5 cm) each Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Indian(er) Jones I – Fact or Truth, 2010 Chromogenic print 71.25 x 52.16 in. (181 x 132,5 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna


Geisterbeschwörung, 2012 Chromogenic print 49.60 x 60 in. (126 x 150 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna La Catrina or another Mexican Afternoon, 2013 Chromogenic prints 49.60 x 40.15 in. (126 x 102 cm) 16 each 12.40 x 15.74 in. (31,5 x 40 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Participant Observer, 2016 Analog chromogenic print, light box 47.24 x 55.11 in. (120 x 140 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Professione: fotografa, 2018 11 chromogenic prints 16.33 x 20.27 in. (41,5 x 51,5 cm) each Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna At five in the Afternoon, 2018 Chromogenic prints 49.60 x 40.15 in. (126 x 102 cm) 16 each 12.40 x 15.74 in. (31,5 x 40 cm) Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Films Passages, 1996 Film, Normal 8 and Super-8mm, transferred to 35mm, found footage (colour, sound, German with English subtitles) 12:00 min. Production: Polyfilm Verleih Sales, rentals and distribution Sixpack Film déjà-vu, 1999 Film, Normal 8 and Super-8mm, transferred to 35mm, found footage (colour, sound) 23:00 Min. Production: Polyfilm Verleih Sales, rentals and distribution Sixpack Film Phantom Foreign Vienna, 2004 Film, Super-8mm, transferred to 35mm, (colour, sound) 27:00 min. Production: Amour Fou Sales, rentals and distribution Sixpack Film


Imago Mundi – Challenging what is accepted, 2007 Film (colour, sound, German with Englisch subtitles) 37:00 min. Camera: Caroline Champetier Music: Peter Ponger Production: Amour Fou Sales, rentals and distribution Sixpack Film Installation The Master Narrative und Don Durito, 2017 Two-channel audio-video installation (German, English subtitles) 10 chapters (accessible at www.vimeo.com/user24353939) Total duration: 480 min. The work was produced for the exhibition The Master Narrative in the Weltmuseum Wien and will be on view there until October 2019. Courtesy Charim Galerie, Vienna Objects All Objects from Lisl Ponger’s MuKul museum Figurine, Goodbye Middle Class, Vienna, 2014 Plastic 6.10 x 3.14 in. (15,5 x 8 cm) Miniatures, ca 2010 Dyed rattan, plastic 2.16 x 3.54 x 2.36 in. (5,5 x 9 x 6 cm) 5 figurines, Kenya, ca. 2000 Wood Differend sizes Figurine, Columbus, Italy, ca. 1992 Painted porcelain, wood 7,28 x 2.95 in. (18,5 x 7,5 cm) Figurine, Penitente (Semana Santa), Seville, ca. 1990 Embroidered fabric, cardboard 13 x 9.44 in. (33 x 24 cm) Mask, Día de los Muertos, Mexico, 1975 Painted papier mâché 7.08 x 6.70 in. (18 x 17 cm) Tile, two pieces, Seville, date unknown Polychrome glazing 10.82 x 5.51 in. each (2 je 27,5 x 14)

http://www.vimeo.com/user24353939


Cross, Chamula, San Juan Chamula, Mexiko, date unknown Painted wood 15.74 x 3.14 in. (40 x 8 cm) Figurine, cameraman, Dakar, Senegal, date unknown Painted wood 11.61 x 4.72 in. (29,5 x 12 cm) Figurine, Democratic Republic of the Congo, date unknown Wood, nails 13.38 x 10.23 in. (34 x 26 cm) Figurine, model of a totem pole, Canada, date unknown Painted pearlite 8.26 x 5.11 (21 x 13 cm)

Documents

Press Release Lisl Ponger. Professione: fotografa · Photography, experimental film, media art —Lisl Ponger’s œuvre is between the foreign and the native and familiar. The Museum