Edgar Honetschläger

Edgar Honetschläger (*1963 in Linz, Austria) sees himself as a wanderer between cultures. With a keen interest in the development of cultural identity and the answers that different societies have found to questions about life and meaning, he undertakes a subtle artistic search for clues in both foreign and his own culture.

The photographs in the series I want to see the empire fall were taken in 2002. In purely formal terms, the extraordinarily brilliant nature shots are reminiscent of advertising or calendar photography. They show contemplative details of nature devoid of people: a reflecting water surface, a network of blades of grass or a yellow-glowing flower meadow. It is only at second glance that one perceives the text that runs through the motif like an advertising slogan and whose content gives the works their philosophical seriousness and delicate subtlety. Edgar Honteschläger collected the sentences during his stays in the USA and Japan. “Empire” refers to consumer culture, which now extends into all areas of our lives, from our leisure time to our emotional lives: We are the addressees of the messages.