Begegnungen

The work of Nikolaus Walter (b. 1945) is the result of numerous encounters with people and landscapes. Since 1966 he has been producing photographs on his expeditions to many »off the beaten track« locations around the world, where he comes into contact with social outsiders. The results attest to the artist’s special gift: he takes pictures of people without exposing them. Walter is guided by a brilliant sense of intuition for the stories of people and places at the edges of society. His keen eye spots the perfect moments from which to develop his photographic accounts. Three essays examine Walter’s work from different perspectives. Anton Holzer places the work in the photographic historical context while Margit Zuckriegl dedicates herself to the artist’s »intuitive sociology.« Finally, Willibald Feinig’s literary contribution approaches Walter’s oeuvre by way of a portrait of the artist that highlights the dialogic character of his photographs. The catalog accompanies a retrospective and assembles some 250 photographs from all phases of the artist’s career.