exhibitions 2025
Floating Bonds
Regina Anzenberger
FLOATING BONDS is a journey into the world of thousands of curious seahorses that inhabit the aquariums of a farm in Australia. Founded by a biologist, the farm was originally intended to breed seahorses for the Chinese market in order to help secure their survival in the wild. Unfortunately, the project did not succeed, and […]
The Eloquent Silence Of Light
Kamil Varga
Kamil Varga’s photography is imbued with a mysterious magic—a specific perception of the world as an entire universe in which the energy of one’s own subconscious, mysticism, and Eastern philosophies play a central role. They form the artist’s “private universe,” in which he formulates theories about doubt, searches for answers, perhaps truths about himself. He […]
Sichtbarkeiten
Fritz Simak
Die Fokussierung der Photographie auf eine Ideologie des Abbildens verkennt, dass ihre „picture politic“ im Potential des Sichtbarmachens, des Herausbildens begründet ist. Das vielgestaltige, über Jahrzehnte entstandene photographische Oeuvre von Fritz Simak thematisiert im Spannungsfeld von figurativ und abstrakt die Frage nach der Sichtbarkeit der Welt. Dabei geht es um den Blick auf Alltägliches ebenso […]
about:blank__friction lines
Irene Lucas, Johanna Tatzgern, Ilse Chlan, Christoph Euler, Anouk Lucas
How can a photographic approach to an urban vacant space be developed performatively and analogously as part of a collective activation in the form of an art action? What intermediate zones and dimensions of slowness, movement, and disappearance in space and time can be revealed? The project »about:blank___friction lines«, initiated by the Expanded Garden collective, […]
Grand Prix Exhibition / Grand Prix Ausstellung Rotlicht 2025
Ella Morton
It has become a valued tradition that the Grand Prix winners of the ROTLICHT Festival Open Call are given a solo exhibition in our gallery, complementing the group exhibition at the festival headquarters. This year, we are especially pleased to present the work of Canadian artist Ella Morton. Morton’s innovation lies in transferring the idea […]
Oleksandr Glyadyelov
THE EYE OF OLEKSANDR GLYADYELOV
This year’s „Festival Selection“ artist is icon of Ukrainian contemporary documentary photography, Oleksandr Glyadyelov, ROTLICHT is welcoming an exceptional artist and his work, in cooperation with Cyberlab, the exclusive partner of this event.
Co-existence to be or not to be?
Albin Ljungqvist, Anna Sokolova, Serafima Parland
In the cross roads of analog and digital, human cooperation and power systems, the daily and the unique, a small piece of each will take something away from the other, but yet in the meeting, while some thing disappears, something else appears About the artist: Albin Ljungqvist: photographer based in Helsinki, focusing on experimental photography, […]
Ihr Traumhaus im Grünen
Klaus Titzer
Klaus Titzer explores the language of real estate advertising for newly built single-family homes, duplexes, and row houses, juxta posing glossy marketing promises with the reality of the projects. Phrases like »Your dream home in the countryside, surrounded by nature, with first-class architecture« were used as input for the AI Midjourney to see how artificial […]
Flowers Of Hope / Blumen der Hoffnung
Natascha Auenhammer
The artist’s task is to deepen the mystery. There are many things that escape the eye or consciousness, are not visible at first glance, develop in secret. The flowers of hope were created in this way. If you look closely, you will discover the number 3:16 and 8, numbers of hope. It is the most […]
Quiet on the Extinction Front
Peter Eriksson
As silence falls, the remains speak loudly of a past that created its own demise. While the demise was caused by an inability to focus, the silence after screams of desperation and failure. There was one thing we shouldn’t do, yet it was done, or rather, actions were not taken and hence, there are no […]
Winners of Open Call »Life After Extinction?«
Main exhibition
ROTLICHT Festival for Analog Photography was excited to receive 332 submissions from 43 countries engaging with the possibility of »Life After Extinction?« which was the theme of this year’s Open Call. Inspired by the need and desire to broach a difficult and arguably disheartening topic, the jury was delighted to find artists from various parts […]
Life in dystopia / Leben in der Dystopie
Tania Bakum, Igor Efimov, Bogdan Gulyay, Olia Koval, Veronika Mol, Maks Mokrytskyi
This group exhibition at the Masc foundation features the work of six artists from Ukraine.
Kunst in der Tankstelle
Group Exhibition
»Kunst in der Tankstelle« brings together twelve artistic positions dedicated to analog photography as a contemporary practice. In a time defined by digital excess, the exhibition views the analog image as a site of resistance and deceleration, presented as part of the ROTLICHT Festival. Working with film, light, and chemistry reveals a slower relation to […]
Oh, for material’s sake!
Pavle Banović, Magdalena Chan, Jonathan Dellago, Michael R. Jimenez, Jakub Kłak, Yevheniia Kriuk, Yaroslava Melnychenko, Nico Pistec, Jule Thullner Curated By Claudia Rohrauer & Lisa Rastl
Materiality, process, manipulation, investigation: these terms were the starting point for the Analog Photography Workshop project, which was conceived and developed as part of a course with students from various departments at the University of Applied Arts. The fundamentals of analog photography form the starting point for nine individual approaches that explore the materiality and […]
Hot Glass / Heisses Glas
Stanislav Piatrik
The project »Hot Glass« focuses on the way established structures in visual arts encounter chance. It allows two different layers of film to interact mechanically and observes how content and form spill over from one substrate to the other. The connection creates a new authentic layer that randomly makes one story or the other legible. […]
Japanese Nights
Christoph Saal
Japanese Nights is a visual exploration of Japan’s creative energy after dark. From glowing neon streets to quiet back alleys, the project captures the unique atmosphere, colors, and moments that define the night in Japanese cities. It highlights the contrast between stillness and movement, tradition and modern life, told through moody, analog photography. This series […]
Offline
Nick Wohlfahrt
OFFLINE is a visual journey born out of a time of upheaval – a dive into the streets of Southeast Asia and New York. Between neon lights, fleeting encounters, and handwritten notes, fragmentary memories emerge – raw, powerful, and unfiltered. The photographs feel like pages from a travel diary, telling of disorientation and the longing […]
Female Transition and Transience
Anna Tihanyi, Maria Kracikova
The works shown by Anna Tihanyi present fictional transition stages of life. The situations are rooted in intimate questions of the artist’s personal past, through which a common aspect of rootlessness and alienation, the permanent feeling of outcasts and the desire to be integrated can be conveyed. In the project of Maria »Poems of Vanishing« […]
Ihr Traumhaus im Grünen
Klaus Titzer
Klaus Titzer explores the language of real estate advertising for newly built single-family homes, duplexes, and row houses, juxta posing glossy marketing promises with the reality of the projects. Phrases like »Your dream home in the countryside, surrounded by nature, with first-class architecture« were used as input for the AI Midjourney to see how artificial […]
Put on the Red Light
Julius W. Chromecek, Sigrid Herler, Paul Müller, Kerstin Pfleger, Daniela Zeilinger
LUMEN X is a self-organised, open photo lab in Vienna, supported by a diverse community of artists, activists and self-taught photographers. The exhibition shows analog works created between the darkroom, exchange and improvisation. It reflects photographic processes and social realities: as a lab in precarious circumstances, we work with limited resources but great dedication. Our […]
The Wind Has Ruffled Everything / Der Wind hat alles Zerzaust
Julia Maria Gruber, Noah Kolb, Ilay Schwingshandl and Niclas Venneker
The group exhibition »Der Wind hat alles zerzaust« (The Wind Has Ruffled Everything) shows current works by artists Julia Maria Gruber, Noah Kolb, Ilay Schwingshandl and Niclas Venneker. The individual positions shed light on different forms of death and destruction and formulate reflections on what remains to us or how we remember. A brief glimpse […]
A Closer Look
Bruce Gilden
Bruce Gilden is considered one of the last great representatives of classic street photography and one of the most uncompromising portrait photographers of our time. As a member of the legendary Magnum Photos agency since 1998, he has been pointing his camera at those who otherwise remain invisible: the »underdogs«, »misfits«, and marginalized figures of […]
Eop Pop-up Ausstellung
Group Exhibition
In 2025, the association eop (Emergence of Projects) will host a pop-up exhibition at OpenCave under the dual theme »Life After Extinction« and »Cave Painting«. More than 20 artists explore how cave painting can be reimagined today, employing analog photo graphic techniques such as the enduring cyanotype, designed to outlast generations. Central questions arise: What […]
about:blank___friction lines
Irene Lucas, Johanna Tatzgern, Ilse Chlan, Christoph Euler, Anouk Lucas
How can a photographic approach to an urban vacant space be developed performatively and analogously as part of a collective activation in the form of an art action? What intermediate zones and dimensions of slowness, movement, and disappearance in space and time can be revealed? The project »about:blank___friction lines«, initiated by the Expanded Garden collective, […]
Oh, for material’s sake!
Pavle Banović, Magdalena Chan, Jonathan Dellago, Michael R. Jimenez, Jakub Kłak, Yevheniia Kriuk, Yaroslava Melnychenko, Nico Pistec, Jule Thullner Curated By Claudia Rohrauer & Lisa Rastl
Materiality, process, manipulation, investigation: these terms were the starting point for the Analog Photography Workshop project, which was conceived and developed as part of a course with students from various departments at the University of Applied Arts. The fundamentals of analog photography form the starting point for nine individual approaches that explore the materiality and […]
Offline
Nick Wohlfahrt
OFFLINE is a visual journey born out of a time of upheaval – a dive into the streets of Southeast Asia and New York. Between neon lights, fleeting encounters, and handwritten notes, fragmentary memories emerge – raw, powerful, and unfiltered. The photographs feel like pages from a travel diary, telling of disorientation and the longing […]
The Wind Has Ruffled Everything / Der Wind hat alles Zerzaust
Julia Maria Gruber, Noah Kolb, Ilay Schwingshandl and Niclas Venneker
The group exhibition »Der Wind hat alles zerzaust« (The Wind Has Ruffled Everything) shows current works by artists Julia Maria Gruber, Noah Kolb, Ilay Schwingshandl and Niclas Venneker. The individual positions shed light on different forms of death and destruction and formulate reflections on what remains to us or how we remember. A brief glimpse […]