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The

Artist

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Photographer

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Visual Artist

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Art Director

Thomas Albdorf

Nominated in
2026
By
FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
Lives and Works in
Vienna
After working for several years as an Art Director, Thomas Albdorf studied Transmedia Art at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, where he graduated in 2013. He was selected as an international “Artists to Watch” by British Journal of Photography in 2014; he won the UNSEEN Amsterdam Talent Award in 2016. He had institutional solo shows at FOAM Amsterdam (NL) and Museum Folkwang (DE), and his work has been exhibited throughout galleries in Europe & the United States. He has been featured in and interviewed for magazines like FOAM Magazine, British Journal of Photography, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Wallstreet Journal, The Guardian and many more. He received the Austrian State Scholarship for Fine Art Photography in 2024.
Projects
2022

Body Double

The series “Body Double” is a portrait of Los Angeles - not the actual city in California, but the abstract place which is embedded in the general consciousness through the representation in popular culture, primarily in movies. “Body Double” is a hike through the streets of the metropolis, partly based on appropriated images - from Google Street View, films, or vintage imagery - partly actually photographed on location in Los Angeles. Almost nothing here is what it appears to be at first glance - the sculptures photographed in the streets as well as in hotel rooms were never in the indicated places, the images are partly automatically deconstructed or created by software; the majority of the works were created in several steps that took place outside and inside the studio. Every picture questions and discusses its conditions of production, the authenticity of what is shown, and the unconscious expectations and experiences that one brings to the table when looking at an image. “'Body Double' is a book long portrait of Los Angeles made with appropriated images, constructed images, sculpted images and manifested experiences in conversation with elements, fragments of possible memories coexisting with real deconstructions, and real uncertainties glueing it all together. It takes the viewer on a dazed walk through a city’s self and its double, all filtered by the multitude of versions we might experience of it, or we definitely did experience of it, if only through a possible, unrealistic memory.” Elisa Medde
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Thomas Albdorf
was nominated by
FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
in
2026
Show all projects
Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.

In collaboration with experts from the Austrian cultural sector, we have curated a selection that highlights the plurality of artistic approaches – from (auto-)biographical studies to cityscapes to glimpses of everyday and past lives.

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Naa Teki Martey Lebar (*1989) centers her practice on experiences of living across multiple cultures. Her ongoing series “Family Meetings” (2013–) documents recurring visits to her grandmother in Accra and reflects on questions of identity and belonging. Origin and home are navigated as shifting and negotiated positions.

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Thomas Albdorf (*1982) questions the mechanisms of image-making, perception and meaning. His series “Body Double” (2022-23) explores how the image of the city Los Angeles unfolds through the lens of visual culture – from Google Street View, Hollywood films to vintage photographs.

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Julia Gaisbacher (*1983) examines the relationship between architecture and society through extensive, long-term observations. For her project “Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg” (2023), she spent several weeks in the untouched studio of the Conceptual artist, creating a sensitive exploration of Darboven’s life and legacy.

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Eric Asamoah (*1999) explores questions of identity, memory and diasporic experience through portraiture. His project “Here, Nowhere Else” (2023) documents intimate encounters with the boxing community of Jamestown, Accra, emphasizing photography as a relational practice.

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Helena Kalleitner (*1996) revisits sites destroyed in Salzburg during World War II and photographs them as they appear today. By juxtaposing past and present, the series “Portrait of a rebuilt City” (2025) explores memory as an ongoing, shifting process rather than a fixed state.

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The 2026 committee consisted of three external jurors from Austria, who supported the curatorial team of FOTO ARSENAL WIEN in the selection process:

Rainer Iglar, Curator & Editor, FOTOHOF, Salzburg

Christina Töpfer, Editor-in-chief, Camera Austria, Graz

Maria Venzl, Curator for Contemporary Art, OK, Linz

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Felix Hoffmann, Artistic Director, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

Marit Lena Herrmann, Curator, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

Mona Schubert, Curator, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

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