Under the title "HELD TOGETHER WITH WATER. Art from the Sammlung Verbund", the MAK in Vienna presents one of the most exciting corporate collections, which is made accessible to the general public for the very first time. Since 2004, the Austrian Verbund Electricity Corporation has started to build an international collection of contemporary art. The advisory board is headed by Gabriele Schor as chief collection curator.
Today the exhibition was opened with speeches by the MAK's director Peter Noever, by Mrs. Gabriele Schor of course and by the chairman of the managing board Verbund Hans Haider.
The exhibition will be open to the public until September 16th, 2007.
The catalogue is published by Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, under the responsibility of Mr. Markus Hartmann, curated and edited by Mrs. Schor. The layout did rest in the hands of Mrs. Maria-Anna Friedl. And Mrs. Birgit Hofbauer of Edition Lammerhuber did all the reproduction work, work which lasted half a year and made her look very closely to the quality of 663 artefacts. Thank you very, very much for being tough enough to stay focused. Thank you, too to the wonderful collaboration with Mrs Gabriele Schor and on a daily basis with Mrs. Veronika Mader and Barbara Wünsch. It was a great pleasure working with you.
After one year of photographing through the seasons following nature and the work of the winemakers of Vienna I finished editing for the book on the "Wiener Wein". I will start to design the layout today and will be able to present it on May, 21st to my publisher Dr. Gabi Ambros, owner of the Bohmann Media House.
The Vienna Hofburg turned over the years into the most exiting agglomeration of museums. I am pretty certain that there is not other urban space in the world which offers so many phantastic high end exhibitions than the former residence of the Habsburgs in the Hofburg Palace. One of the rather quiet places is the Collection of Historic Instruments. An optical and accoustic feast for the visitor. It spans 400 years of collecting and did become the most spectacular museum of this kind on the planet. The Stradivaris and Guarneris are just some of the \"stars\" of this unique collection. On some occasions the museum does invite famous musicians to play the historic masterpieces like the violine of Mozart\'s father Leopold in the photo shown above.
While working in Paris on my project "Louvre avec Vues" the editor in chief of the ADAC reisemagazin Joachim Negwer called me up and asked me to do the cover for the celebration of 100 issues ADAC travel magazin. I felt honored to do so until he told me what the subject matter is: the Eiffel Tower.
At 11 a.m. the Vienna Artbook Award was given at the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. The award's price money of 25.000 Euro is the highest in the world for a book on the arts. 
Ten days in Paris, no, ten days at the Musee du Louvre to finish up the work on the book project "Windows of the Louvre" now finally titeled "Louvre avec Vues". It was a phantastic time. 
Thanks to Klaus Lorenz, torism director of the City of Baden, I had the opportunity to get to know the city I work and live since 17 years. Finally I had to find my ways around to all hidden corners. 
The last photographic go around after two years of work in this charming wonderland of man made nature sorrounding the castle of Prince Eugene Schloss Hof happend to be gifted by nature. A spring of all springs turned reality into magic as you can see in the image posted above.
This was part two of an assignement for this famous hotel in the romantic Helenen Valley. It was all to be shot indoors with the same group of models. What can I say? It was like working with friends. And it is time to say "thank you" for the collaboration to the owner/director of Hotel Krainerhütte Josef Dietmann.
For the artistic graphic design task of landscape-composings to promote Kaindl's wooden flooring program I was invited to deliver a series of Austrian landscapes for the Salzburg based advertising company Rahofer. The landscapes have been photographed at the following locations: Mostviertel, Salzkammergut, Arlberg, Grossglockner and (to be seen in the composing above) National Park Hohe Tauern in Ost Tirol. It looks quite impressive, great job.
Two days of photosessions with the managing directors of OMV Gas have been perfectly organized by Bettina Schweighofer, assitant to the manager of communications Roland Wolk. My most favorite make-up artist Martina Fasching did a beautiful job (like always) to make great personalities look best. Birgit Hofbauer walked each director through the edit of their photosessions to select the images they personally like. Lastly Michael Nader did put a team of creative employees together, ready to set up situations like boardmeetings etc . for advertising shots. I would like to thank all of them for their commitment to act in a very energetic way to make this project a successful one. Thank you.
Through the contact of my very best friend Alexander Carlson, the management of Jamehl - a 17 year old model/actor born in Jamaica and now living north of New York - asked me to produce a series of photographs to promote the young man's talent and looks, tailored to grab the attention of Hollywood's casting scouts. The photographs have been taken at the historic residence of interior designer Linda Chase in East Haddam Connecticut.
Let's celebrate: IT'S EDITION 150! Who would have thought about this number TWELVE AND A HALF YEARS ago? Thank you very much for the trust and the great collaboration Erwin Luthwig, thank you Maria Gepp. And thank you all the staff at GEO who accompanied us through the years. Isn't it a pretty nice coincidence that this issue with a reportage on the Moststrasse does not only cover the landscape in which the craddle of Austria (formerly named Ostarrichi) is to be found in the village of Neuhofen but also the birtplace of myself in St.Peter in der Au, where this years Landesausstellung of Niederösterreich will take place? By the way: during the month of May when millions of giant pear-trees start to bloom in white, the Mostviertel-landscape will turn into one of the great wonders of the world. Go and see!
On Mach 25th the so called "World Water Day" will remember mankind what it means to have clean water available at any time. The UN-Department for Economic and Social Affairs tries to get the publics attention as well as the attention of politicians worldwide by organizing all kind of meetings and events under the motto "Coping with Water Scarcity" to focus more intensly on this demanding problem. The editor in chief of the Kurier Freizeit Magazine, Michael Horowitz took his responsibility serious and published a contribution to the subject matter under the storyline "Wasserkraft", 8 pages long. An old friend of mine, Werner Rosenberger did write the text.
Last summer, Adrian Pulfer of A3 Design in Salt Lake City, assigned me to fly to Doha to photograph the last and most outstanding work of the architect I.M.Pei, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. This assignment was for a "Thank you Book" to the sponsors of a documentary movie on the museum filmed by Sterling van Wagenens LVL Slickrock Films. To make a long story short, I fell in love with this outstanding project and I got to know the Director of the MIAQ, the most amazing Dr. Sabiha al-Khemir. She immediately took to my way of seeing and working - and here we are: Dr.Sabiha al-Khemir invited me to photograph THE BOOK about the museum and its famed collections. It will be completed for the opening of the museum.
Madame Violaine Bouvet-Lanselle, responsible for all Louvre publications, informed me in the late afternoon of December 6th that the Director of the Louvre, Monsieur Henri Loyrette, had approved my concept for a book taking a completely different approach to the Louvre with the words "I love to do it". This meant that he had also approved the first photography project ever executed by the Louvre in collaboration with a photographer. Of course photography is used a lot in Louvre books, but only as a media to "transport" the works of art the Louvre museum is hosting. It will be different this time. The content of the project will only be released when the book will be presented to the public in early fall 2007. On the dates above, I will keep on working on the photographs with my assistant Sebastian Rosenberg and the support of Madame Catherine Belanger, Press Lady of the Musee du Louvre.
Schloss Hof, the baroque masterpiece once founded and owned by Prince Eugene of Savoy, is situated amidst large gardens – the second-largest after Versailles - and has been revitalized under the supervision of Director Kurt Farasin. It is in full bloom now, and we will try to render in images some of the natural splendours of Schloss Hof, in a book designed by Büro Meisinger. The book is scheduled to be out in early summer. The collaboration between Schloss Hof, Meisinger and me dates back to the very beginning of the Schloss Hof project. I have to admit it was and still is exciting to watch this historic jewel evolving into new shapes. On that day, we will proceed to the next round of photography, the subject being of course "winter".
Starting on the day mentioned above, I completed with some winter impressions this book for the Bohmann Verlag and the City of Vienna, the third book in a series of three: "Wiener Wasser", "Wiener Wälder" and finally "Wiener Wein". All three books are inspired by the visions of the Mayor of Vienna, Dr. Michael Häupl. They form a series not only by their subject matters relating to Vienna, but also by a uniform photographic style and graphic design, which I also provided. The first two volumes had more than 400 pages; the third volume will be published at the end of August and will hold 240 pages. More than 10,000 photographs have been shot so far to cover all aspects of the demanding concept written by Florian Holzer and Christian Grünwald, who will also write the texts. The coordination of the project rests in the hands of Andreas Schwab of MA49 of the City of Vienna. The book will showcase the unique position of Vienna as the world's only capital city with substantial wine growing areas. And by the way: those vineyards produce excellent wines.
On February 18th, I met my assistant Sebastian Rosenberg in Frankfurt. We followed the concept of Prock and Zott, a Salzburg based PR-Company to create the images meant to support the newly developed company philosophy of Ceva, a big player in the international logistics industry. The photographs have been taken at the Pirelli warehouse in Otzberg at the Mercedes plant in Berlin and at Airbus Industries in Hamburg.
Geo Austria 03|2007 shows the Weinviertel seen from a plane. A birds-eye view of one of the most fascinating landscapes of Austria. Alfred "Freddy" Grill was my pilot and Hanne Egghardt did write the text. Since 10|1994 Geo Austria has been editet and coordinated by Silvia Lammerhuber and photographed by me. Starting with issue 01|2007 we are producing Geo Austria, too. The hands for help are Birgit Hofbauer who takes care of the data management and Brigitte Peneder as our X-Press-wizard. This being issue 149, we will have reason to celebrate next month with our publisher Erwin Luthwig and Maria Gepp who originally "invented this collaboration".
Well, sometimes I think I am crazy. Last summer I signed a contract with the Vienna State Opera for delivery of 4,000 copies of a book called "Metamorphosen", EXCLUSIVELY available at the Opera Ball as so-called "Herrenspende", a give-away present to all male visitors of this famous Viennese dance feast. The book shows the magic changes required to transform an Opera for just one night into a giant ballroom for approximately 7,300 people. Early in December, I realized that something was overdue, I mean, completely overdue. The only work done was an interview I had the pleasure to conduct with Mrs. Elisabeth Gürtler, "Prinzipalin" or Chairlady of the Vienna Opera Ball. So I had to do everything at the same time: editing, writing, book-designing and finding sponsors to cover the cost of a print run of 4,000 copies, each book holding 144 pages, printed in 6 colours on finest art print paper produced by Sappi and using for print the Grasl-HQ-print process with 250,000 motif-oriented micro dots per square centimetre. Of course the book had to be bound in fine linen and presented in an elegant slip-cover. Now everything is done, including posters, public relation material, bags, etc. In particular, I wish to thank Birgit Hofbauer for all her digital work, Brigitte Peneder for the pre-press-production, and Jacqueline Thommes for the translation into English and French. Last, but not least thanks to Walter Grasl for his great collaboration in every way. The sponsors that supported me so generously are: Hottinger Group of Vienna and Geneva, Waagner Biro Stage Systems, Artaker, Dorotheum, Weingut Hajszan, Jörg Doll, ONE, Heinz W.Pichler, Sappi and Papernet. Thank you very much for the trust you have placed in this very special project.
Joachim Negwer, Editor in Chief of the ADAC reisemagazine in Hamburg, assigned two stories for the upcoming edition on Paris, "The Louvre" and "Montmartre". I took the photographs last fall and have just finished editing and completed delivery. The Paris reisemagazine will hit bookstores and newsstands on 28|08|2007.
On that evening at 8.00 p.m, Dr. Heinz Fischer, President of the Republic of Austria, inaugurated the exhibition "Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity" together with Dr. Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Director of the Albertina. This touring exhibition started last fall at the Milwaukee Art Museum and will travel from the Albertina to the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, and to the Louvre in Paris. Mrs. Laurie Winters, curator of the Milwaukee Art Museum, had the initial idea for this groundbreaking exhibition. In some "soft" moments she admits that she received her first inspiration from the book "The World of Biedermeier", a "baby" Linda Chase, Karl Kemp and I gave birth to at the Whitney Museum in New York City in 2002. In an exceptional book review, the New York Times stated that "The World of Biedermeier is the reinvention of Interior Design Photography". When news reached me the same evening that the exhibition book "Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity" had been awarded "BEST DECORATIVE ART BOOK OF 2006" by the New York Times and the "NEW YORK BOOK SHOW AWARD OF 2007" for special trade edition - I admit I felt very honoured, especially because the photographic concept I chose here is a completely different one. Driving home I thought to myself, "Well that's not bad, if your book can trigger an exhibition and cause all of this". Many thanks Laurie!
Winter had started without any snow, and then it suddenly brought us 
Geo Austria 02|2007 publishes the story "The Airplane Factory", researched and photographed at the Wiener Neustadt plant of Diamond Aircraft Industries. The text was written by Dr. Hanne Egghardt.
Linda Chase, famous interior designer and author based in Conneticut and I met Dr. Walter B. Denny in Amherst for the last chapter of our "Opus Magnum" on oriental carpets. Dr. Denny is professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts and the only scholar to lecture on Oriental Carpet Studies at a "Western" University.