Exhibition: Elfie Semotan at Francisco Carolinum, Linz

13.03. 2024 – 28.07.2024

Elfie Semotan’s exhibition begins with the picture series “untitled (Birkenwald), New York, 1999”, which can be seen in the corridors of the Francisco Carolinum. Following the blurred silhouettes in the forest, visitors are led into the exhibition rooms. On closer inspection, the dark, forest-like ambience turns out to be an artificially created birch forest. The series sets the tone for the themes explored in the exhibition: experiments with fashion photography and the intersection of commercial work and artistic interventions.

There is no classic fashion photography to be found here, because the aim is not to produce even more aesthetic and glamorous images, but rather to locate them differently. Perhaps even presenting less perfect, more inaccessible faces, not clichédly promoting elegant movements as the ideal, but instead showing unusual, inappropriate gestures. Elfie Semotan’s creative freedom in staging fashion campaigns is evident in the selected works for Liska between 1999 and 2018, as well as in editorials for Allure, D-Magazine and Madame magazines. The long collaboration with fashion designer Helmut Lang unfolds in fragmented, underexposed “backstage” photographs that provide an insight into hurried moments before the catwalk appearance.

 

We realised the photo prints as pigment prints on Hahnemühle sugar-cane and Hahnemühle Photo Rag ultra smooth on our EPSON P 20000 printer!

More information about the exhibition: here!