Reiner Riedler
‘Fake Holidays’
Galerie Hengevoss-Dürkop, Hamburg
14.4.2012 - 19.5.2012
The Austrian photographer Reiner Riedler (b. 1968, lives and works in Vienna), whose images have been printed in the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde, and other media, has received numerous awards for his documentary photography. Before dedicating himself exclusively to photography, Riedler began studying ethnology in Vienna in 1991, enrolling shortly thereafter in the Federal Graphics College, Vienna (renowned as “Die Graphische”). Still, to this day, Riedler appears to draw inspiration from his excursion into the scientific field of ethnology, which becomes manifest in his particular interest in human beings and their at times peculiar cultural techniques and practices.
In his series fake holidays, presented by Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery in a solo exhibiton, Riedler explores amusement parks and vacation resorts around the world with his camera. The people Riedler photographs in the course of his journey spend their vacation in recreated parallel worlds such as the Tropical Island Resort, Berlin Brandenburg, or the Movie Park, Bottrop. Riedler’s approach to the visitors of these constructed, artificial recreation paradises is highly unique and entirely devoid of value judgments: ranging from the couple, for instance, standing on a bridge and gazing yearningly at a screen displaying the sky as if directly arisen from the Truman Show, up to the man with the Ernie ski cap, who is literally stranded in a snow-less indoor skiing hall. Riedler has a deeply human, sometimes touching, sometimes humorous perspective on the fact that not every Chinese is in the position to travel to Paris and not every citizen of Brandenburg is able to venture to New Zealand, having to settle for a less expensive fake version. A slightly different take on the motto of the 21st century: think globally, act locally!
Riedler’s works have been exhibited, among other venues, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2010 (Dreamlands). A book on the series was published in 2009 (Moser Verlag, Munich).
© Reiner Riedler