Schwarze Sulm

Herbert Brandl has fought for years for the preservation of a wild river in Styria, the existence of which is threatened by industrial interests. The artistic pinnacle of this endeavor is a series of paintings in which he ominously mediates the origin, life force, and beauty of this river’s landscape. While each image imparts the threat to the existence of its subject, the painter also refers with each image to the energy and skill on which his artistic practice is based.

Book designer Walter Pamminger has attempted to interpret the ambivalence of the Brandlian project in his own design. Behind the subject and the political interests of the artist, he creates a turbulent progression of whole and detail views that allow the factuality of the images and the painting technique to come to the fore. In addition, he places some of the images, reproduced in black and white, in a reverse orientation, thus giving the beholder another possibility to study the structures and light and shadow effects.