Worlds of Work

Shipwreck and Workers

"Shipwreck and Workers" by the American artists Allan Sekula is the fifteenth and last billboard exhibition in the course of the exhibition series "Worlds of Work" by museum in progress in cooperation with the Vienna Chamber of Labour. The exhibition was presented from June – September 2005 in front of the buildings of the Vienna Chamber of Labour (1040 Wien, Prinz Eugenstraße 20–22 and
Plößlgasse 13). The work was also presented in the daily newspaper DER STANDARD and on INFOSCREENs in the Vienna subway-system.

The American artist Allan Sekula (b. 1951) has been concerned with the content and meaning of the pictorial representation of "work" in extensive photo cycles since the 1970s. Starting from the fact of economic and cultural globalisation Sekula makes critical contributions on questions of social reality. At the same time it is also about a historical contrast: photography as documentation or as an aesthetically autonomous artistic medium. (Brigitte Huck)

"A worker shovels debris in front of a freighter
blown up against the shore:
the Angel of History absorbed in his task,
disgiused as one of Breughel's peasants."

"Build a sequence based on another picture that is not part of the sequence."

"Many work and few rule."

(Allan Sekula)

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