situation 9, 2007

Strip a city street of all its commercial clutter and is it still identifiable? This is one of the questions posed by a series of artworks by Austrian artist Gregor Graf, currently on show at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.

Graf mixes old technology with new in his work, using medium format photography to take the initial shots of a city before removing, via Photoshop, all traces of language and signage from the images, including commercials signs, street signs, people and traffic. The cities become virtually unrecognisable as a result, and oddly sinister. Graf has previously photographed Linz and Warsaw in this style, and turned his attention to London when commissioned to create some works by the Visual Arts Platform at the Austrian Cultural Forum. Shown above is a blissfully quiet Oxford Street...

situation 12, 2007

... while here are streets in Soho...

situation 11, 2007

... Victoria...

situation 10, 2007

and Paddington.

Hidden Town will be on show until April 4.