Krampus
Krampus
2024 Softcover
22.5 x 16 cm, 144 pages
Edition of 500
Text : Hans-Joachim Gogl, Moritz Neumuller
Language: English & German
Design: Studio Mut, Anni Seligmann
Published in the series: Inn Situ
ISBN: 978-3-903334-77-9
With support from BTV Stadtforum Innbruck
As part of the INN SITU series, photographers focus on the Tyrol/Vorarlberg region.
Kurt Tong deals with belonging and collective identity. In KRAMPUS, folklore, cults of the dead and rituals are the central themes. His work blurs fiction and document, staging and historical research. Classic photography is supplemented with researched images, postcards are juxtaposed with pictures from private photo albums, newspaper pages are combined with elaborately designed, staged studio shots. Protocol and anecdote, factual reports and fantasy stories overlap in favour of a more complex narrative of reality. The Tyrolean commercial forest becomes the set for a horror film.
“I deliberately adopt the attitude of an unsuspecting person from another culture who approaches the phenomena of this custom from the outside. There are many documentaries about the Krampus, as well as historical and contemporary footage. I didn’t want to compete with that. The longer I dealt with the subject, the more it became clear that the search for the intangible, the uncanny, is at the heart of the work. Yes, the uncanny must remain invisible.” (Kurt Tong)
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Interviews
Making of Krampus, behind the scene video by Thomas Osl
ORF news segment
Radio Interview
Komplex Kulturmagazin
Tiroler Tageszeitung
The Photo Vault podcast with Lukas Birk