Krieg. Österreichische Triennale zur Fotografie 1993.

We cite from the introduction:
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"WAR.
Preparations for the WAR. exhibition began in early 1993. There was a practically inescapable logic in relating this photographic event to the disaster taking place in former Yugoslavia, only a few hours away from Graz - an equally artistic and real life logic. The project was not meant to remain on a self-reflective level, within the confines of photographic artistic pracice; it was not to be limited to the investigation of methodical and formal decisions or a definition of positions within the realm of photography. Rather, the intention was to place the medium before the background of historical reality. A challenge to an artistic discipline habitually dealing with the real? It is, in any case, an experiment and, as such, it also allows for failure as a possible answer. What reaction to a situation of WAR is possible within the photographic debate - how can this complex formation be made „visible", designated and incorporated in an artistic production?
Choosing WAR. as a topic is to place any expression, any statement (made today) in the context of WAR. Searching for possible forms of expression, for ways to describe and deal with WAR., is crucial in a situation where commentary and illustration (the main functions commonly associated with photography) have lost their credibility; a situation where reality is seen (has come to be seen) as mediated, so that nothing short of an assault on the body seems capable of introducing a reality experienced as real. Such an experience might serve to overcome the immunity effected by everyday violence.
With a theme like WAR. (which creates an additional background, in terms of photographic history, as a strategic and propagandistic device), we believe that this exhibition project should be doubly effective: Focussing on a specific event, we address the general conditions of an artistic discipline dealing with reality. With reference to photography, a principally depictive medium, these conditions imply a specific challenge - to articulate, in a language in keeping with the spirit of our day, whatever is visible and thinkable of reality, whatever is comprehensible of its fragments."