Elfie Semotan the doyenne of Austrian photography, worked as a model for years after completing training to be a fashion designer before she got behind the camera to garner international fame with her lyrical fashion photography.

Semotan’s photographs always reflect her awareness of art history and the art scene around her. The boundaries between advertising and art photography are fluid in her work which inspired fellow artists like Martin Kippenberger.

That Elfie Semotan cannot be called a fashion photographer in any usual sense is impressively demonstrated in her Kunsthalle Krems exhibition which, apart from numerous well-known series of pictures, places a focus on works produced outside the domain of fashion photography.

Featured in the show are Semotan’s nudes and New York street scenes as well as her ‘throwaway shots’ with their almost abstract quality.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Krems, 14 July – 6 October 2013.

English and German text.