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Elfie Semotan im Heiligenkreuzerhof

by Elfie Semotan

Photographs: Elfie Semotan

Publisher: Harpune Verlag

104 pages

Year: 2012

ISBN: 978-3-902835-10-9

Price: 35 €

Comments: exhibition catalogue; German and English; 19,5 x 28 cm

Fashion photography is an ideal means to visualise the world of fashion, a world in which glamour perfectly controls the borders between reality and fiction - sometimes too perfectly. Elfie Semotan, the Austrian doyenne of international fashion photography, pursues a different approach to this world. In an intellectual and humorous way, she broaches the issue of beauty and glamour with all its fragileness. To Semotan, beauty starts to unfold only through a combination of an interesting appearance and a person’s character. This way, she has not only become successful in he fashion and advertisement world, but also in the world of art, where she broadens her approach to beauty and aesthetics through the reference to everyday life objects and scenes. An example of this is the exhibition, with which the Universität für angewandte Kunst honoured Semotan’s work in the spring of 2012. The apparent easiness of her orchestration in the baroque rooms of the Heiligenkreuzerhofes are further conveyed in the exhibition catalogue. For this purpose, the Brand Unit created an extraordinary concept: once opening the wrapper, a ‘naked’ paper lies in front of the viewer. The ultra-thin paper and the occasional empty pages throughout the publication underline the effect of easiness, fragility and transparency. Supported by room sketches and stamp-size photographs of the empty rooms, the viewer can imagine and experience the exhibition all over again – as a fragmented theatre of beauty.

Catalogue for exhibition "Elfie Semotan im Heiligenkreuzerhof" at Heiligenkreuzer Hof, Refektorium, in Vienna from Mrach 8 to April 30, 2012.

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