Valentina Seidel, Anja Manfredi and Michael Mauracher moderated by Rainer Iglar
A Different Form of Teaching
21. 8. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Panel discussion in the exhibition at Fotohof “Valentina Seidel, Learning from Salzburg… Sommerakademie and Salzburg College 1992–94, a personal research” with artist Valentina Seidel, Anja Manfredi (Director, School of Artistic Photography Friedl Kubelka, Vienna), Michael Mauracher and Rainer Iglar (moderation)
Welcome: Martina Berger-Klingler (Director, Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts)
Since 1975, Salzburg – alongside Graz – has been an important place for engaging with contemporary photography, thanks to the photography program at Salzburg College. Beginning in 1976, the Salzburg Summer Academy also offered a dedicated photography class. A particular feature of photography education in Austria was the longstanding absence of comparable programs at the country’s leading art academies in Vienna. Private initiatives, such as the School for Artistic Photography Friedl Kubelka, founded in 1990 and currently directed by Anja Manfredi, filled this gap.
German photographer Valentina Seidel, who has had long-standing ties to Salzburg, revisits the early stages of her artistic journey in a new exhibition at Fotohof. Through her personal research, Seidel reflects on her formative experiences in the educational programs of both Salzburg College and the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg. Seidel attended Michael Schmidt’s photography classes in 1992 and Nan Goldin‘s in 1993. She then studied at Salzburg College for a year. In 1994, she began studying photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig, graduating as a master student in 2011.
In this discussion, Valentina Seidel will reflect on her search for an alternative, non-vocational approach to artistic photography – one not primarily rooted in technical training – and share her experiences in dialogue with contemporaries and long-time collaborators. How much self-teaching is still necessary or meaningful today, despite the increasing availability of academic programs? This and other questions will be discussed with current students of the Salzburg Summer Academy, considering both historical context and present-day perspectives.
key data
- Venue
- Fotohof
- Date
- 21. 8. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Valentina Seidel
Valentina Seidel (born 1973 in Regensburg; lives and works in Leipzig) has always focused her artistic work on portraits, which have been documented in publications such as Exchange-Portraits with Artists (2008) and Eigenbrot (2014), both of which were published by Fotohof Edition.
Website
Exhibitions
Solo and Duo Exhibtions (selected)
2025 "Learning from Salzburg", Fotohof > Studio, Salzburg (AT)
2024 "G* a Cervia", Kollaboration with Giovanna Sarti, Note di Sguardi. intervention in public space in Cervia (IT), Bologna (IT) und Berlin (DE)
2019 "Dessau Files", with Joachim Brohm, Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Vienna (AT)
2016 "Trinity Project", with Joachim Brohm, Mana Contemporary Chicago, Chicago (US)
2014 "Eigen Brot – Menschen and Dinge", LSD Galerie, Berlin (DE)
Group Exhibtions (selected)
2025 "Foto Fokus, 22 Leipziger Blickwinkel", Kunstverein Freunde aktueller Kunst, Zwickau (DE)
2021 "one artist - one minute, Künstler:innen aus 40 Jahren FOTOHOF", Stadtgalerie Lehen, Salzburg, (A)
2020 "Was uns verbindet" mit Joachim Brohm, Wiebke Loeper, Michael Schäfer, Grit Schwerdtfeger, Villa Heike, Berlin (DE)
2017 "Strange Beauty", Beck & Eggeling, Düsseldorf (DE)
2017 "VIS-À-VIS" , Ausstellungsraum bautzner69, Dresden (DE)
Publications
2020 "Riebeckstrasse 63: Akteure und Räume", artist book, bautzner69/publish&print, Dresden (DE)
2019 "Bauhaus Nr. 11 Centenary", The Bauhaus Foundations Magazine, Dessau (DE)
2018 "Zeichen aus Rufe" with Irene Nenhoff-Herchenbach, artist book, hesperus print publishers, Dresden (DE)
2016 "Trinity"; with Joachim Brohm, artist book, Snoeck publishers Cologne (DE)
Anja Manfredi
Anja Manfredi (*1978 in Lienz) lives and works in Vienna at the interface of photography and installation. Her artistic focus is on the visualization of emancipatory gestures, bodies and stories that are often overlooked in a social or historical context. She prefers to work with analog photographic techniques.
Since 2010, she has been the artistic director of the Friedl Kubelka School for Artistic Photography, which she graduated from herself (1998/99). Further studies in fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1999-2005) under Eva Schlegel. In 2022, she completed her doctorate with the thesis “Geste im Bild” under Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Cultural Studies. From 2004 to 2010 she worked in the collective of Fotogalerie Wien. Member of the Association of Visual Artists of the Vienna Secession since 2016.
Website
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions (selection)
2023 Transgression, Charim Galerie Dorothergasse, Vienna, AT
2023 Atlas, Kunstforum Vienna, Tresor, AT
2022 Atlas, capter 1, LUMEN - Museum of Mountain Photography, Plan de Corones, IT
2020 Raum gewordene Blicke in die Sterne, new yörk, AT
Group Exhibitions (selection)
2023 DZ Bank Kunststiftung, Frankfurt, DE
2022 Fotohof Salzburg, AT,
2022 Bildraum Bodensee Bregenz, AT
2021 Fotogalerie Wien, AT
2018 Kunst Haus Wien, AT
2017 Galerie Charim
Publications
Anja Manfredi, Atlas, with contributions by Lisa Ortner-Kreil, Astrid Peterle, Anna Fliri, Nicole Haitzinger und Massimo De Giusti, Verlag Fotohof edition, 2023
Anja Manfredi, Gesture and Analog Photography, with contributions by Jürgen Tabor, Verlag Fotohof edition, 2020
Glimpses into the Stars Became Space, Anja Manfredi with Nicole Haitzinger, Verlag Fotohof edition, 2020
Anja Manfredi, The South Tyrolean Housing Estate or the Memory of the Houses, the Plants and the Birds, with contributions by Maren Lübbke-Tidow and Hannes Obermair, SCHLEBRÜGGE.EDITOR, 2021
Michael Mauracher
Michael Mauracher (born 1954 in Klagenfurt) lives and works in Salzburg.
He received photo-artistic training at Salzburg College in 1975/76 and attended the photography classes at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg several times. He has also taught and organised international workshops at Salzburg College.
In 1981, he co-founded Galerie Fotohof and was the curator and editor of Fotohof Edition (together with Rainer Iglar).
From 1994 to 2021, he was a senior lecturer in photography at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. In 2001, he was a lecturer at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and has been an honorary professor of artistic photography there since 2005.
In 2016, he won the Austrian Art Prize for artistic photography.