Marko Zink M 48° 15′ 24.13″ N, 14° 30′ 6.31″ E

The internationally acclaimed exhibition M 48° 15′ 24.13″ N, 14° 30′ 6.31″ E by Austrian artist Marko Zink was shown in 2019 at galerie michaela stock and at the Mauthausen Memorial and 2021 at Bildrecht Vienna.

In 2022, the exhibition was on view at MSU Zagreb and then in Osnabrück as part of the Week of Fraternity under the annual theme "Fair Play - Every Person Counts". The exhibition was shown simultaneously in three places in Osnabrück: in St. Katharinen, as well as in Dom St. Petrus & Nikolauskapelle and in Felix Nussbaum Haus / Vertikales Museum in the Osnabrück Museum Quarter.

The exhibition title could not be more objective: M 48° 15′ 24.13″ N, 14° 30′ 6.31″ E are the coordinates for Mauthausen. What interests Marko Zink is not documentation but irritation. He forces viewers to look carefully, opening up a multilayered debate. Using the medium of photography, he attempts to make a twofold disappearance visible: the extermination of people and the eradication of memory. It is an intensive engagement with a past that will not expire. The medium chosen by Marko Zink is analog photography. He manipulates the material before exposing it: He boils it or stamps it, treats it with chlorine or ink eraser. Using this delicate material, he photographs selected sites in and around the former concentration camp. Sometimes Zink's works seem like found historical photos, taken quickly and in secret, bleached by the sun, half destroyed by the ravages of time. On a separate plane, the photos' injuries seem to give an account of the atrocities that took place there less than eight decades ago. And sometimes they seem to make visible what seemingly cannot be seen anymore. With his work, however, Marko Zink reminds us that this is still possible: that which remembers the past, and that which warns against what is to come – we can see it all. If only we want to.
Wolfgang Huber-Lang