Johannes Baudrexel’s series “Spare me your sanity” catalyses a moment of diffuse memories, an act with multiple causes. Baudrexel removes the narrative from the photographs without neutralising narrative elements.
“Spare me your sanity” is inspired by the personal impressions of a manic-depressive father, who later developed dementia, and wants to tell the story of a late-modern society that is permeated by promises of happiness and performance imperatives. The core element of the work is the appropriation of public and private space for performance interludes, which Baudrexel stages himself and has photographed under his direction. As an anonymous recurring figure, he wants to be an anomaly in the public sphere and embody both thesis and antithesis to social tendencies. The performative act of the staged photographs thus results in an almost schizophrenic multiplication of personality. Here the memories of Baudrexel’s father mingle with the portraits of the egoless; those individuals surrounded by deceptive promises and mute constraints.

Johannes Baudrexel is an artistic photographer and works in Vienna. He studied media conception and completed a master’s degree in design and photography at the FH Bielefeld. A cynical view of everyday life and a passion for staged photography have become the basic constants of his artistic work. His current work, which includes portraits and photographic caricatures, deals with and reflects developments in society and visual pop culture. For him, critical social theories and the linking of theory and practice in general are also part of the explosive material of various project and motif ideas.

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