Signs of the landscape: Opening

Richard Frankenberger: Winter-Spaziergang / Winter Walk 2017-01-23

Magdalena Frey (film about Hans Breuer, photo-collagen) &  Richard Frankenberger (photos, pictures, books)

Hans Breuer will be present and sing some songs. Irmi Horn is reading texts; Richard Frankenberger MITTEILUNGEN I-III.

About Hans Breuer:
Hans Breuer was born in Vienna/Austria. Both parents were anti-fascist activists, his father was Jewish. His familiarity with Eastern European music goes back to his childhood. He sings with his band WanDeRer in Yiddish, Turkish, German, Hungarian, French, Spanish and English.
As a shepherd he opens up the country life to city people. In workshops with children and teenagers he relates his experience as a wandering shepherd, as a musician and poet; with a critical perspective on history he creates connections between different cultures.

Austria’s last wandering shepherd

“To be a wandering Shepherd nowadays means you have to conduct legal studies to be able to defend yourself against recurring legal charges in order to prevent, at least partially, having to pay exorbitant lawyer’s wages. “You there. Do you have a permit? Can you show me your ID.” “I can’t stay up here, Mr. Inspector, if you want to talk to me, you have to walk along with me, I can come to your head quarters later on, but we don’t need a permit, please look it up in the Road Traffic Act (RTA) somewhere near paragraph eighty …

Being a wandering shepherd also means – to understand the language of animals. Although apparently their vocabulary is small and their facial expressions are limited, their gestures and the statement of their intentions by patterns of movement in the scenery, are so rich. When a sheep wants to descend to the river to drink water, it turns it’s body towards the river bank and turns it’s head backwards, to urge it’s colleagues to come along, then it makes two or three purposeful steps and stops to call the others again.

Also the intention of a cat must be perceived instantly, otherwise your dog is already chasing it and your sheep are in the crop field. The excited calves behind the rusted barbed wire, the nervous horse under the saddle of a curious rider, the deer which will whiz straight through the protracted herd, the hare that still did not run away yet, the tame rabbit that sits in the front yard you are passing, you have to be the first to recognize all this. You have to grasp quickly the intentions, also of people you are approaching, before your sheep or dog react or the riding horse goes through the herd. Otherwise you find your self confronted with the next small disaster.

Then you have to be willing to quickly find the right words, make yourself unpopular and be relentless if the dear visitor does not want to see that you cannot cross the herd with a dog, a horse or a car, but also immediately heal the wounds of the sensitive modern soul through well meant words. To make friends, not enemies in the new environment.

The more often you can convert a possible disturbing factor and use it to your advantage, e.g. by calling off the dog from the side where the children are playing and put it on the leash because the yelling children will keep the sheep away from the street anyway, the more satisfying your day will be.

The reward is a terribly red sunset behind gold-plated wool hills, happy rotund ruminating ewes, lamb gangs leaping into the air, waggling dog tails and the feeling to have done something meaningful together with your companions.”

By Hans Breuer – Austria’s last wandering shepherd.

About “Signs of the landscape”

Their images of various landscapes with this specific qualities investigate or even evoke a contextualization with various social and cultural correlations.

How does a landscape impinge on their habitants, and in what way the habitants have influence on their living areas and are able to manipulate it.

If it is the “real” nature controlled or performed or destroyed by humans or is it a big suffering by uncontrolled incidents p. e. of hurricanes, dryness, heat, frost … there is a correlation, which must be realized.

You will find the landscapes also in your face, your body, the environment,  the societies: hostile, modest, emphatic …

The artist will permit – by contemplating their pictures – to find an area of reflection for persons, who are interested in detecting phenomenological and social processes given by a certain degree on recognizing.

They are setting signs to share the stage of our contemporary culture.
Irmi Horn

Magdalena Frey

1963 born in Graz, Austria.
Trained as nurse after finishing school.
Rosa-Mayreder-College: Diploma in “basic feminist studies”.
Since 1985 photographic works.
Since 1996 computer-based photo collages..
Since 2008 short films.
Lives and works in Ladendorf, Lower Austria.

Exhibitions / Participations:

2012 Stadtmuseum Wiener Neustadt / A
Kunstverein Baden / A
2011 Reumannplatz i.d. Westbahnstrasse, Vienna / A
Museumszentrum Mistelbach / A
M55projects, Athens / GR
2010 Kunstgarten, Graz / A
2009 Künstlerhaus Vienna / A
Municipal Gallery, Ternitz / A
Budapest Gallery / HU
AFZ, Linz / A
forumschlosswolkersdorf, Wolkersdorf / A
2008 Museum Center Mistelbach / A
2007 Austrian Cultural Forum, New York / USA
Museum M, Mistelbach / A
2006 Gallery Piekary, Poznan/ PL
Municipal Museum Graz / A
Municipal Gallery Wozownia, Torun / PL
Gallery Kunst und Handel, Graz / A
Ernst Museum, Budapest / H
FSMGallery, Florenz / I
the23project, Los Angeles / USA
2005 Backlight05, Museum Center Vaprikkii, Tampere / FIN
2004 Gallery Hofstätter, Vienna / A
Museum M, Mistelbach / A
Lepont Gallery, Aleppo / Syria
2003 Gallery Feichtner-Mizrahi, Vienna / A
Kunsthalle Krems / A
Gallery Pohlhammer, Steyr / A
2002 Fotogalerie Vienna / A
Gallery Arsenal, Poznan / PL
Kulturforum, Warschau / PL
2001 Museum M, Mistelbach / A
Gallery Hummel, Vienna / A
Gallery Pohlhammer, Steyr / A
Kosmos, Vienna / A
Fotogalerie Vienna / A
Gallery La Xina, Barcelona / E
2000 Gallery Foka, Thessaloniki / GR
Studio Morra, Naples / I
1999 Kleiner Kunstpalast, Meran / I
Gallery Pohlhammer, Steyr / A
1998 Design Center, Linz / A
Shed-Halle, St. Pölten / A
Austrian Cultural Forum, London / GB
1997 Fotografie aus Österreich, Dortmund / D
Fax Exhibition, Quito, Ecuador
1996 Ruimte Morguen, Antwerp / B
Movimento-Gallery, Linz / A
Gallery Pohlhammer, Steyr / A
1995 Fotoforum Bolzano / I
Gallery Hummel, Vienna / A
1994 Rupertinum, Salzburg / A
Bildungshaus, Retzhof / A
1993 Liget-Gallery, Budapest, HU
Gallery Hummel, Vienna / A
1991 Municipal Gallery of Prague / CZ
Municipal Gallery Jihlava / CZ
Minoritenkirche Krems / A
Museum M, Mistelbach / A
1990 Frauenbad, Baden / A
Künstlerhaus, Graz / A
1989 Fotogalerie Vienna / A
Movimento-Cinema, Linz / A
Municipal Museum Graz / A
1988 Fotogalerie Vienna / A
Hof Gallery, Weistrach / A
Neue Galerie, Graz / A
Museum of Photography Helsinki / FIN
Bildungshaus Retzhof, Leibnitz / A
1987 Gallery Faber, Vienna / A
Hof Gallery, Graz / A
Europalia, Gent / B

Books:

Landmeter, Gallery Pohlhammer
Aus der Mappe meines Großvaters
Scham
Plot, DEA-Verlag
Roma
girls cut
digital collages 1999-2003, Gallery Hofstätter
Maria M, with poems by Günter Brus

Awardse:

1999 Award for artistic photography of Lower Austria
1988 Award of the province Styria

Hans Breuer, Photo Magdalena Frey

Magdalena Frey FRAUENHAAR, Photo-Collage 2016