In hidden Vienna

The writer Gerhard Roth has been exploring Vienna for over 20 years; he topped the bestseller lists with his collections of essays titled “A Journey to the Centre of Vienna” (1991) and “The City” (2009). In his search for clues, he was always on the lookout for remote and “hidden” places, including the Institute for Pathology and Anatomy in the “Tower of Lunatics”, the Natural History Museum Storage Depot, the Cemetery of the Unnamed, or the House of Artists in Gugging. 

Roth looks behind the scenes, his interest lies with all that has been covered up or suppressed, with those who have been outcast or forgotten. The writer always takes his camera with him on his meticulous research trips so as to produce “photographic notes”. Over the years an extensive archive has developed with several thousand photographs. Roth considers 10cm by 15cm sized pictures to be an “intermediary stage to writing”. 

At the core of the exhibition is a representative selection of the Vienna photographs, taken between 1986 and 2009: a pictorial journey to “Hidden Vienna”, which, like Roth’s essays, exerts a magical attraction.