Photos by Klaus Pichler
Klaus Pichler was born 1977 and lives in Vienna, Austria. After his university graduation in 2005 he decided to quit his profession as a landscape architect and to become a full time photographer. He still has had no photographic education at all and he likes it. The topics that interest him in his photographic work are both the hidden aspects of everyday life in its varying forms, as well as social groups with their own codes and rules. He likes to get a view behind the scenes and to work on his projects witch a conceptual approach.
It all started when I happened to catch a glimpse through a basement window of the Museum of Natural History Vienna one
night: an office with a desk, a computer, shelves and a stuffed antelope. This experience left me wondering: what does a museum
look like behind the scenes? Therefore, the focus of this study is not on the exhibition spaces of the museum, but on the space behind the scenes, particularly depots, cellars, and storage rooms assigned to individual departments which are generally not accessible to the public. These spaces are used for the storage of countless exhibits belonging to various collections, sorted following a rigidly scientific classification system, but also taking into account the limited storage space available.As a photographer with limited knowledge of scientific research methods, the museum’s back rooms presented to me a huge array of still lives. Their creation is determined by the need to find space saving storage solutions for the preservation of objects, but also the fact that work on and with the exhibits is an ongoing process. Full of life, but dead nonetheless. Surprises included!
