The Other Life. Photographs by Konrad Mautner

Photo albums belonging to the Mautner family came to light recently containing more than 2,000 photographs. These images serve as the starting point for a modern-day examination of the friend and patron of the folk life museums in Graz and Vienna. Created from the 1890s until Konrad Mautner’s mother’s death in 1924, taken mainly in Gössl am Grundlsee as well as in the Styrian region of the Salzkammergut, the albums tell of friends, neighbours and family members, yet mainly of Konrad Mautner himself as a family man, businessman, performer, documentarian, ethnographer and networker. Mixed in with this are also photos from Vienna, from journeys to Paris or to his father’s textile production sites. In all, the photographs show one life next to the other – the rural one in country attire, the urban one in a suit. Probably conceived originally as a memento for the family and the local area, some of these photographs were more widely disseminated. Today, they allow us insight into the everyday cultural life of the producer of images that was Konrad Mautner.

The Folk Life Museum at the Paulustor combines these various aspects of Konrad Mautner in its exhibition, creating a multilayered voyage of discovery. At the same time, The Other Life sets in motion the confrontation with Konrad Mautner within the family and its memory of the same, through the long-concealed images that bear direct witness. For the exhibition in the Folk Life Museum, objects from the ‘Konrad Mautner Collection’ have also been included in the presentation.

This is a benchmark project from the cultural city of Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut 2024. As a travelling exhibition, the show can be seen in Bad Ischl from 18.08.2024.