Jules Spinatsch
(Switzerland)
The Vienna Opera Ball is an annual event that dates back to the mid-nineteenth century at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it celebrates Austria’s links to its past imperial power and is seen as the social event of the year. In recent times the ball has taken on a wider social meaning with demonstrations taking place outside the Opera against the opulence of the event. Jules Spinatsch’s Surveillance Panorama Project No. 4: Vienna MMIX 10008/7000, Speculative Portrait of a Society (2009–11) depicts this grand occasion in minute detail. Two computer-controlled cameras, similar to surveillance cameras with telephoto lenses, scanned the event over an eight-hour period to make this expansive society portrait of the great and the good of Vienna.
Born in 1964 in Davos, Switzerland, Jules Spinatsch lives and works in Zurich and Vienna. Spinatsch received an Honorary Appreciation at the Stiftung Buchkunst in Leipzig, the Prix du Livre at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2005), and the International BMW Photography Prize at Paris Photo (2004). His works have been exhibited at Fotomuseum Winterthur (2012), the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2007, 2012), the St. Moritz Art Masters Festival (2011), the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam (2011), the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2011), the Tate Modern in London (2010), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010), Kunsthaus Zug in Switzerland (2008), the Centre de la Photographie in Geneva (2008), the NRW Forum in Düsseldorf (2007), and Kunsthaus Zurich (2006), among others.
DARLING FOUNDRY
745 Ottawa Street | 438.878.0344
Sept. 6 – Oct. 5, 2013 | Wednesday to Sunday 12 pm to 7 pm
Opening Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 at 6 pm (meet the artist)