Willy Puchner


Willy Puchner is an Austrian photographer, artist, painter and author.

Life

Puchner was born and grew up in Mistelbach an der Zaya, Lower Austria, where his parents owned a photo studio. In 1967, he moved to Vienna to attend photography classes at the Höhere Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt.
After graduation in 1974, he taught photography there for two years.
Since 1978, Puchner works as a freelance photographer and writer based in Vienna.
In 1983, he started to study philosophy, history and sociology. Puchner finished his studies in 1988 with a master's degree in philosophy. His thesis was "Über private Fotografie". Since 1988, he gave numerous speeches "On Private Photography" at universities, museums and galleries. Beginning in 1989 Puchner works regularly for the Wiener Zeitung.
Willy Puchner became famous with his project "Penguins - Traveling the World". For four years he traveled with his penguins Joe and Sally to the sites of his and our yearning: to the sea and into the desert, to New York, Sydney and Paris, Venice, Tokyo, Honolulu, Rome and Cairo, in order to capture them in photos. There they are now connected forever, lost forever. Before the penguins’ eyes the apparently familiar having been illustrated thousands of times, becomes different and new again.
Freddy Langer, a journalist, wrote about this project in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung : "He let them pose in front of word famous sights, pretending they were tourists – and he took their photograph. So he created the most beautiful photo album regarding traveling of the 20th century: ”The Longings of the Penguins”
Willy Puchner likes to work with old people, creating the projects "Die 90-jährigen", "Dialog mit dem Alter", "Die 100-jährigen", "Lebensgeschichte und Fotografie" and "Liebe im Alter".

Exhibitions

4 stamps out of the book Tagebuch der Natur
.

Publications in magazines

Extrablatt, konkret, Stern, GEO, Life, Corriere della Sera, Marco Polo, Asahi Camera,, Universum, Falter, Wiener Zeitung

Awards