In the exhibition “Anschluss” at LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz and the eponymous publication conceived as an artist book, Vienna-based artist Tatiana Lecomte addresses historical events in Austria around 1938. Lecomte conducted research in Linz’s photo archives and assembled a selection of historical images, which she complemented with artworks of her own. There are images, for example, from Mauthausen concentration camp and of Linz Synagogue in flames during the “Night of Broken Glass” (Reichskristallnacht) in November 1938.
The book can be considered independently of the exhibition and allows new connections to arise between the images. Photography usually serves to keep collective memories of the past alive, but under the Nazi regime it became an aesthetic tool used to manipulate the mass media. However, with her project Tatiana Lecomte does not seek to document Nazi crimes; rather she focuses on the act of image production and how the resulting material is classified. She questions traditional set meanings and observes history and its documentation as a construction.