Bildsujet

The photo series DER REFLEXIONSSPIEGEL (What have you been up to all morning?) is composed of mirrors printed with historical photographs. Between 1938 and 1945, several thousands of artworks came under the administration of the Monuments Office, where they were inventoried and photographed. In most cases, care was taken that these images be made before a neutral backdrop. In a few cases, however, persons involved in the process of dispossession cropped up at the periphery of the photograph; in others, mirrors captured the reflection of the photographer or the camera. The series focuses on the fact that real life persons were responsible for the looting of Jewish property.

Arye Wachsmuth, born in 1962 in Hamburg and raised in Tel Aviv, is an artist based in Vienna. Topics of his artistic investigations include technology, history and its perception. Since 2008, Wachsmuth has increasingly focused on Austria’s confrontation of the country’s past, developing several memory projects. Since 2013 his works also explore topics of flight and refugees.

Arye Wachsmuth, 2008, DER REFLEXIONSSPIEGEL III (Was habt ihr den ganzen Morgen lang getrieben?), Photographic material courtesy of the Federal Monuments Office, Vienna