Michael Goldgruber

Michael Goldgruber's photography and film work revolves around people and their view of nature, their journey into the landscape. As a hiker and mountaineer, researcher and artist, Goldgruber explores how humans create cultural spaces. In the exhibition at the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, the artist focuses primarily on the natural and cultural landscape of Lower Austria. Numerous new works have been created for this purpose.

Goldgruber is fascinated by the “remnant modules” of so-called wilderness that still exist in Lower Austria—such as the Dürrenstein area, but especially the transition zones between wilderness and cultivated landscape. Goldgruber wants to explore these areas beyond the tourist perspective. Using the example of the Rax, Ötscher, and Ybbsitzer Alps mountain ranges, he circles around the tension surrounding clichéd terms such as “originality,” “primitiveness,” and “primordial landscape” with photographic and filmic works. In this context, he is also interested in the wolf as a model of the wild animal that is becoming native to our latitudes again.

The artist's perspective is not that of an environmental activist or social critic who denounces environmental sins, media coverage, or the economic exploitation of nature with a raised index finger. Nor is it the uncritical, naive view of an inexperienced hiker, but rather the keen eye of a passionate nature lover and observer. Goldgruber wants to sensitize us to think about how sustainable natural spaces are shaped by culture and how diverse cultural landscapes can be today. 

Curator: Günther Oberhollenzer