Street Life in Vienna. Photographs from 1861 to 1913
Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria (volume 2)
Michael Ponstingl: Street Life in Vienna. Photographs from 1861 to 1913 (= Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria, volume 2), Wien: Brandstätter, 2008, 100 pages, 88 figs. in color and b/w
€ 12,50
Life in the streets of Vienna around 1900, as captured by the recently introduced snapshot, may be read as a narrative in a number of ways: Social, political and economic claims articulate themselves in everyday dealings—and not only where large gatherings of people may be observed, such as in markets or at the Prater (the traditional fun-fair in Vienna). A vanishing world, sentimentally evoked in picture postcards? An urban environment undergoing a process of transformation, and which calls forth resentments?