Identities

Jitka Hanzlová (*1958) is one of the leading contemporary photographers. The ALBERTINA Museum presents the internationally renowned artist's first museum exhibition in Austria and brings together ten of her most important series.

Homeland, loss, exile and identity are central themes in Hanzlová's work. The artist fled from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to West Germany in 1982, where she later studied visual communication with a focus on photography in the city of Essen. It was only after the opening of the Iron Curtain that she returned to the region of her origin again and again for artistic projects from 1989 onwards. Hanzlová's first series Rokytník (1990-1994) shows in subtle colors the everyday life of the inhabitants of her eponymous home village, which is familiar to her and from which she has nevertheless distanced herself during her years in exile. For the atmospheric images of Forest (2000-2005), she photographed the forest of her childhood near the Carpathian Mountains and reflects its organic stillness as a subjective experience. This contrasts with impressive portrait series taken in international cities: Bewohner (1994-1996), Female (1997-2000) or Brixton (2002) examine identity through the relationship between the individual and the urban environment. In later series, Hanzlová increasingly deals with ecological issues. These highly precise and formally stringent photographs also revolve around questions of human existence in a constantly changing environment.