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The days of March 2020 will not be forgotten. The global corona pandemic reaches Austria. With the first lockdown everything is different. Cinemas, theaters and museums are closed. The streets are so deserted. The order of the day is: stay at home!
Photographs from this time document the exceptional situation at the time. Memories are awakened. The images show the usual and familiar from new perspectives. With the necessary temporal distance, previously unknown dimensions of urban life open up to the viewer.
While the Natural History Museum is normally visited by more than 3,000 people every day, it was closed - like all other museums - during the Corona crisis. The approximately 100,000 exhibits suddenly no longer had an audience. But there was one exception: Dona Jalufka. The artist, who was born in the USA (Houston / Texas) and has lived in Austria since 1990, took advantage of this extraordinary "timeslot". She roamed the museum with her camera and entered into dialogue with the preserved objects. The result, "Preserved", an illustrated book in Edition Lammerhuber, which specializes in high-quality photo books and has won many awards, is intended to be a "pictorial love letter" to the Natural History Museum, says Jalufka on page 14. In other words: a "pictorial love letter" (page 16) to do justice to the bilingual text.
"Preserved", the elaborately designed landscape format with 184 pages, combines 92 illustrations, with the subtitle: "A Natural History". Anyone who browses through the series of photos will see not just one, but 92 natural stories. Every picture, be it from the exhibition collections or the depots of the Haus am Ring, which opened in 1889, captivates the viewer.
The perspectives of the photographs, chosen with great love for the object, are as diverse as the objects shown here. At the beginning of the book, the house's most famous object, the Venus of Willendorf, greets you. "And how do you capture the splendor of the Venus of Willendorf? I couldn't come close to matching it, so I decided to photograph it out of context - as a large plastic model, in a corner, surrounded by other obsolete objects." (page 14).
The photographic diversity is fascinating and leads you through the deserted museum in a varied, fresh rhythm. Here are some dinosaur skeleton feet; there is a monitor lying on its back. Then a glass case with well-arranged human skulls with inventory numbers and the place of their origin (Falkenstein). Here are two hermit crabs pickled in alcohol. There are the silhouettes of two mighty deer. In the bird collection a magpie with colorful needles. There is an open wooden drawer with taxidermied mice: Natural History Museum / State Property. Such details, which are self-evident for scientists - now carefully brought into the light - give new weight to what is familiar.
Anyone who thinks that everything is dead, soulless and serious is wrong. A portrait of the Madonna with a small crocodile in front of it, flanked by two stuffed deer heads, testifies to the taxidermists' humor. It can also be found on the trophy signs. At the goat you read: "Poor Liesl, Hainbach October 25, 1932"; at the buck, which only has one antler bar: "Poor Maxl, Hainbach October 25, 1932." Thanks to Dona Jalufka for showing us this scene too. To quote James Benning, the American filmmaker, in the foreword: "Your photographs are expressive and beautifully composed. Take your time with each one. There is much to discover." In other words: a museum like never before!
The content of the illustrated book with photos by Christopher Mavrič and texts by urban researcher Peter Payer in two sentences: "This book is an attempt to understand. To understand and document what actually happened in Vienna in 2020, which was so decisively shaped by the Corona crisis." (page 5).
The 160 pages of "Silent City", which was published on March 15, 2021, are an interplay of content-rich text blocks ("Approach", "Unrealities", "Interlude", "Eruption of Violence", "Return of Silence" and "Outlook") with expressive series of images. Like a countdown, we are reminded in "Approximation" of what happened between December 31, 2019, when the world learned about a mysterious lung disease in China (Wuhan), and Sunday, March 15, 2015: "The city center of Vienna is emptier than ever." The day before, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz spoke of the “biggest crisis since the Second World War.” (page 11).
The “unrealities” begin with March 16th, the first lockdown, and document all the restrictions, cancellations, bans and uncertainties until May 1st, 2020. “The traditional celebration at Rathausplatz is canceled.” (page 27). Peter Payer doesn't just recount personal memories. His high-quality texts are current reviews condensed with quotes. They are based on a broad foundation with 141 notes and more than four pages of literature and sources. On April 22nd, he quoted Falter editor Armin Thurnher: "We are living in the Corona war. There is a state of emergency, and above all, the phrase rules. The media is full of slogans for perseverance, half-truths and speculation." (page 25)
Shortly after the lockdown, Christopher Mavrič set off into the city with his camera. She showed herself as he had never seen her before. "The sight of the empty Karlsplatz subway station was proof of something that I couldn't quite believe up until that point. I was the only person in the station." (page 5). The picture taken at that time can be found on page 30, dated March 20th. Mavrič does not limit himself to showing a depopulated city; rather, he shows us numerous people in his photos. Almost everyone is wearing a face mask, people between loneliness, hope and joy. About the picture shown here, which can be found in the book on page 30 ("April 10th, Josefstadt"), Mavrič writes: "... a photo that, for me, symbolizes in a sympathetic way the everyday dealing with one of the great challenges of the Corona period that we all had to overcome: to meet one of the most important basic human needs and to continue to exist as social beings, to meet our friends and personal ones, despite the lockdowns, the threatened punishments (for being too close) and the risk of infection Maintaining contacts."
Briefly, the remaining chapters. From May 2020, “Intermediate” will be about the urban “soft opening”. Here Payer reflects on the urban and mental changes of the last few weeks. The "eruption of violence" is about the terrorist attack on November 2nd near the Bermuda Triangle (Inner City), in which four people died. “Return of silence” describes the second Corona wave with a “soft” lockdown from December 3rd to 16th. The "Outlook" (page 147) ends with the words: "Fiat lux!", in German: "Let there be light!"
Conclusion: "Preserved - A Natural History" is an artistic declaration of love to the objects of the Natural History Museum, with excellent photos as a door opener to other worlds. “Silent City – Vienna and the Corona Crisis” documents Vienna in the Corona year 2020, well researched and with a wide range of images. (Thomas Hofmann, April 17, 2026)