The
Artist
Julia Gaisbacher
Lives and Works in
Vienna
Julia Gaisbacher (*1983) lives and works in Vienna (AT). She studied art history at the University of Graz (AT) and sculpture at the Dresden University of Fine Arts (DE), as well as the Sint-Lukas School of Arts in Brussels (BE).
At the center of her working method are extensive research and long-term observations that focus on the urban landscape as a human living environment. The starting point is always photography.
Her final works manifest in the forms of prints, installations, films and photobooks, with the latter having become an important part of her artistic practice. Her latest book, “Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg”, was published by Hatje Cantz in 2025.
Projects
2023
Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg
"Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg" is a long-term exploration by Julia Gaisbacher of Hanne Darboven's home and workplace at the address "Am Burgberg" and, at the same time, continues Gaisbacher's own work on "dream houses."
The Viennese artist's photographs offer insights into Darboven's studios in the south of Hamburg (DE), which have remained unchanged since her death in 2009. The five houses on the unique estate served as her living and working space for 40 years. The central structure is the studio building that Darboven designed herself, embedded in a historic homestead. To this day, the ensemble also functions as a treasury for thousands of objects and artworks.
Gaisbacher's precisely composed black-and-white photographs of the rooms, whose seemingly chaotic abundance contrasts sharply with the strict order of Darboven's works on paper, create a compelling artistic dialogue about time and space between the generations.
Hanne Darboven (1941–2009) lived and worked in Hamburg and is one of the most prominent conceptual artists of the 20th century. In the 1960s, she was among the earliest proponents of this groundbreaking international movement; she was also an attentive observer of her time and the historical and contemporary currents in politics, culture and society.
Julia Gaisbacher
was nominated by
FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
in
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Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.
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I’ve always loved photography, even if it sounds like a cliche. The first photos I took, I did without knowing how to do that, without paying any attention to framing, subject or composition. After a while, I began to understand what is happening in the space between me as a photographer and the subject I was photographing. And many years later, I also understood why I love to photograph. To communicate. A message, a concept, an emotion.
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