From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried
Press release
11.06.2025
Image Credits
Duration
13.06.2025 - 06.01.2026
Press event
11.06.2025 11am - 12pm
Place of the press event
History Museum
Curators
Margit Neuhold
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It was from up in the valley that the farmer Franz Göttfried (1903–1980) began photographing the people of St. Lambrecht. Starting in the 1920s and extending into the early 1940s, he took their portraits on festive days, during their work, and in everyday situations. The remarkable photographs have survived on approximately 500 glass negatives in the 9 x 12 cm format, stored in the attic of his home in Upper Styria.
Together with the FOTOHOF>ARCHIVE, Simon Baptist has secured this photographic legacy and is now developing it into a substantial archive. What is hidden in it, and how can knowledge be generated from this archive? Involving local people, particularly the relatives of those portrayed by Franz Göttfried, Simon Baptist approaches the roughly hundred-year-old photographs: He exposes them anew, enters into the structure of the images and their interstices, seeks out places and people, records what has been told, remembered and handed down and takes this as the starting point for his filmic work, which he places alongside the archive. In this way, he transfers the photographic legacy into the present and questions the collective visual memory of a local community.
From up in the Valley presents excerpts from the historical archive together with Simon Baptist’s video works.
Exhibition views
The curator of the exhibition “From Up in the Valley” Margit Neuhold with the artist Simon Baptist at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Maria Froihofer, Chief Curator of Multimedia Collections, Bettina Habsburg-Lothringen, Director of the History Museum, Margit Neuhold, curator of the exhibition “From Up in the Valley” and artist Simon Baptist, from left
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view "From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried" at the History Museum
Photo: Simon Baptist
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
Exhibition view ‘From Up in the Valley. Simon Baptist - Archive Franz Göttfried’ at the History Museum
Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek
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