Doremus Scudder, Vienna – Behind the Façade
A tribute to my erstwhile home town

Dec. 5, 2023 through Jan. 5, 2024
During First Friday Artwalk, Dec. 1, 5-7:30 pm

New Zone Gallery
110 East 11th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97401
541.683.0759
Tuesday through Sunday –  12 – 6 pm
newzonegallery.org
Free and open to the public

Vienna – Behind the Façade
An affectionate look at little-seen parts of this famous city that evoke bygone times.

Vienna is a tourist town; flaunting its well-groomed baroque and Jugendstil architecture and rich cultural offerings. But if one ventures away from the “city on display,” into the districts that rarely see tourists, one finds many areas that have not been appreciably restored or renovated since before the Second World War.

There, one can encounter remnants of the bourgeois opulence of the late 19th and early 20th centuries intermixed with post-war architecture and more modern designs. These scenes, preserved in various states of repair, bear witness to a society and lifestyle that has largely vanished. These things still stand, cloaked with their patina of time, not because they have been maintained, but rather due to lack of resources, reluctance to change, neglect or simply because they were robust and useful enough to survive.

“When I moved to Vienna in the mid-1980s, I became fascinated with these ghosts from the past. I scoured the back streets and the far reaches of the city for them, on my bicycle with my large-format camera strapped to my back. These images span the 30 years I spent there. They show a part of the city that I came to know and love. Vienna is still becoming a modern metropolis. These places, which once embodied the character of the older city and its inhabitants, are gradually being renovated or replaced by newer, more homogeneous designs. Many of these scenes no longer exist, having been demolished or rebuilt in the years since my photographs were made. I look on them with a bittersweet nostalgia.”

Doremus works exclusively in “analog photography,” using large-format cameras, film, and making silver-gelatin prints in the darkroom using traditional techniques. Nothing whatsoever is done using digital technology. His work is exhibited widely and represented in numerous galleries and private collections throughout the United States and Europe.

www.DoremusScudder.com