Under the title „Zoology“ gallery rauminhalt_harald bichler will present new works by Stefan Oláh in an extensive solo exhibition from 13.03. to 16.04.2021.
Stefan Oláh is one of the most renowned Austrian photographers in the field of architectural photography. In 2014, he produced an outstanding publication for which Oláh was allowed to look into the depots of Austrian museums with his camera – a privilege, knowing how few people are allowed to enter museum storages. In a photo series started in 2020, Oláh returned to the „archive“ again.
This time, the depot of the zoological collections of the University of Vienna was in focus. Not only the preparations, with their glass eyes peering through covers made of plastic film, but also their historical collection of wall charts he observed up close and used his view to reinterpret some of the sensory organs. In a careful and intensive examination of the existing material, new views of the collection and objects were generated in a close cooperation with the University of Vienna. ​However, as so often in Oláh’s work, it is also a farewell to its architecture, a last, memorable look to save it. The collections are relocating along with the departments and will soon leave the building for ever. Not to intervene in the found depot situations or to arrange them, but to empathize with the camera into the existing situation and to capture the character and the aura of the essential, sometimes also seemingly insignificant at first, with his special view of the close-up „zooming in“, has a special attraction for the photographer, who waits a whole year or longer for the right moment, the right light, the desired snow for some series of photos.