Ausnahmezustand
Format: 210 × 290 mm
Pages: 148
Print: Offset
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN 978-3-912964-02-8
Year: 2026
Pages: 148
Print: Offset
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN 978-3-912964-02-8
Year: 2026
30,00 €
Volker Renner’s Ausnahmezustand (State of Emergency) initially appears like an ordinary family album: holiday photographs, group portraits, snapshots taken aboard an AIDA cruise ship. German tourists on vacation, smiling faces, sun, sea, leisure. Everything seems familiar, harmless, almost nostalgic. Yet this is precisely where the tension of the work begins.
The images evoke the early 2000s — a period often remembered as comparatively innocent and carefree. Digital cameras, package holidays, cruise-ship entertainment, the promise of relaxation and experience. But behind the perfect holiday façade, a sense of unease emerges. What do these photographs actually show? Happy vacationers? Or also a form of self-staging, cultural distance, and controlled encounter?
The book stands in for countless family albums: it collects memories, but it also conceals what remains outside the frame. Foreign cultures appear as scenery, as exotic backdrops for one’s own travel experience. The tourists seem to immerse themselves in unfamiliar worlds, yet they often remain inside an artificially protected comfort zone. The cruise ship becomes a symbol: it carries people to distant places without requiring them to truly confront them.
Ausnahmezustand (State of Emergency) therefore does not simply show holidays; it reveals an attitude. The images document a society that wants to move without having to change. They show a desire for the foreign, but also a fear of genuine encounter. Between family album, travel photography, and critical observation, Renner creates a portrait of German holiday culture that looks familiar — and becomes unsettling precisely because of that familiarity.
The images evoke the early 2000s — a period often remembered as comparatively innocent and carefree. Digital cameras, package holidays, cruise-ship entertainment, the promise of relaxation and experience. But behind the perfect holiday façade, a sense of unease emerges. What do these photographs actually show? Happy vacationers? Or also a form of self-staging, cultural distance, and controlled encounter?
The book stands in for countless family albums: it collects memories, but it also conceals what remains outside the frame. Foreign cultures appear as scenery, as exotic backdrops for one’s own travel experience. The tourists seem to immerse themselves in unfamiliar worlds, yet they often remain inside an artificially protected comfort zone. The cruise ship becomes a symbol: it carries people to distant places without requiring them to truly confront them.
Ausnahmezustand (State of Emergency) therefore does not simply show holidays; it reveals an attitude. The images document a society that wants to move without having to change. They show a desire for the foreign, but also a fear of genuine encounter. Between family album, travel photography, and critical observation, Renner creates a portrait of German holiday culture that looks familiar — and becomes unsettling precisely because of that familiarity.
