Arno Gisinger — Topoï — CPIF — Centre photographique d’Ile-de-France — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 19 → March 31, 2013

Based in Paris since 2004, Arno Gisinger has for 15 years now been developing an artistic method which fuses photography with historiography. His projects — inspired by German thought from between the two world wars and by the methods of “new history” — offer a contemporary reading of history and the places or non-places of memory. His work examines visual representation of the past, using various forms and figures: witnesses, objects and places. Witness testimony, the function of the archive, and the status of documentary evidence are at the heart of his artistic preoccupations.

The monographs appearing at the Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France are taken from Arno Gisinger’s major works of recent years (Oradour, Invent arisiert, and also Konstellation Benjamin) and are set alongside a production created especially for the space.

The project is the result of a European co-production by the Museum für Photographie Braunshweig in Germany, the Landesgalerie Linz in Austria, and the Swiss Photoforum PasquArt in Bienne, and will be accompanied by an important publication to be produced by the publishers Transphotographic Press (Paris) and Bucher (Austria).

Arno Gisinger was born in Austria in 1964. He studied at the Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles. His dual training as artist and historian and his dual interest in art and humanities led him to work on the relationship between memory, history and visual representations.