Heidi Harsieber (born 1948 in Gloggnitz)[1] is an Austrian photographer who is known for her independent artistic work and also for her portrait and documentary works of the Austrian art scene.
Heidi Harsieber completed an apprenticeship as a photographer in 1963–66 and the photography master class at Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna.[2] In 1970, she was the youngest self-employed commercial photographer in Austria,[3][4] and she has been working as an artist since the 1960s.[5] At Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien she was head of the »Fotozentralwerkstätte« [central photography lab] from 1977 to 1985 and from 1991 to 2001 she taught documentary photography for conservators.[6] Harsieber was influenced by Ernst Hartmann, who was a teacher at 'Graphische'. As a tribute to his personality, she published a monograph in collaboration with Maren Gröning, who researched his life and work – this also contains a section on Josef Matthias Hauer and contributions from former students.[7]
In 1973, she was commissioned by Friedensreich Hundertwasser to photograph self-built and individually designed shacks and cabins in allotment gardens in Vienna. The planned book project did not come to fruition, but the photographs were shown in 2014 under the title "Peripheres Wohnen" at Galerie Ortner 2.[8]
Critics have commented on Heidi Harsieber's photography, that »she is a "great portraitist who deals with the body, with sexuality, pain and death,«[9] her »eye for the incongruous in an ostensibly ordered world«[10] and having a »penchant for edges of all kinds« and working in »thematic loops«, such as people and landscape studies, artist portraits, material and object studies, self-portraits, body studies and performances and places and spaces.[11]
Astrid Peterle writes in the publication FacingAustria: »Heidi Harsieber's photography is characterised by an inquisitive, sensual and psychologically motivated approach to human beings. She approaches the subjects in her photographs with great affection«.[12] Manisha Jothady in a review of Harsieber's book always well behaved: »[Her images] vividly express the reflection on illness, pain and transience in conflict with the desire for vitality, youth and beauty". Jothady sees Harsieber's photography in the context of feminist artists of the 1970s, on the one hand because of her »fragmentary representation of the self, which seems to be in a constant state of transition« and on the other hand because Harsieber seeks to initiate a dialog with herself through her attempts to inscribe her own body in the surrounding space, which serves self-perception and self-positioning.[13] In an Ö1 radio item Anna Soucek said, »Blurred bodies can often be seen in [her] photos, or only individual body parts, sometimes with props - as blurred as the boundaries between eroticism, pain, illness and transience in Heidi Harsieber's work«.[7]
Works by Heidi Harsieber can be found in these public collections: Albertina, Federal Photography Collection, Vienna; Landesmuseum Niederösterreich, St. Pölten; OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH (Francisco Carolinum), Linz; Vienna Museum, Vienna; Art Collection of the arts department of the City of Vienna, MUSA, Vienna; Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna.[14] Extensive permanent loans from the artist can be found in the Fotohof>ARCHIV.