Photo Levallois - Reiner Riedler

Reiner Riedler, Altered States

Traveling implies accepting all sorts of changes and we can measure the distance covered in the ells of these daily upheavals. According to Reiner Riedler the distance which prevails, nourishes and intoxicates is, above all, a human one (cultural, anthropological and symbolic) rather than geographic.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, a longing to travel, which Reiner Riedler perceived as leading to the beyond, to the unknown, drove him onto the roads of Central Europe near his native Austria. This was at the time when the Berlin Wall fell and the Eastern block opened up; Reiner Riedler was 20 years old.

We can easily imagine the fascination the young Austrian must have felt for these bordering countries whose culture was so very different from the one in which he grew up. Albania, the Balkans and then, closer and closer, Poland Ukraine and, at last, Russia, that other pole whose influence Austria had felt throughout the course of History, just as it had, that of its opposite, Western Europe.

Twenty years on, Riedler is one of the major figures of that generation of photographers of reality who explore incessantly the border between document and fiction. Self-taught, Riedler has forged and refined his personal style, which mixes corrosive humour, delicacy, exuberance and nostalgia.

The journey as a poetic experience, in the course of which, the unknown can take on the cast of dream and the night is a time of change and renewal, are the two ideas which have inspired this exhibition, which will assemble a large number of new images, including a series made during the season of the midnight sun in Saint Petersburg, in June 2011.

Entitled "The dark curtain", this series constitutes a new stage for Reiner Riedler, as far as the importance given to mental space with regard to objective reality is asserted more distinctly.

This exhibition will be an opportunity for the public to discover Reiner Riedler's work from a less familiar angle, more completely. Indeed, if his series, "Fake hollydays" has already been widely exhibited in France (in particular in Montpelier in 2006, at La Maison Rouge ("The Red House") in 2009 and at the Pompidou Centre in 2010), it represents only one aspect of this artist's work, which is both varied and constantly evolving.

Reiner Riedler was born in Austria in 1968. He now lives in Vienna.
He has published several books, including: "Ukraine" (pub. Otto Müller Verlage) and "fake holidays" (pub. Moser).
In France, he is represented by the Heart Gallery, Paris.

http://www.photography.at/

Exhibition From November 25 to December 17
Salons d'Honneur de l'Hôtel de Ville, Levallois