ON SHOW

Digital Prints, 35x50 &50x75 cm, © 2002-07 Paula Muhr

The images of shop windows, store entrances, kiosk fronts and other similar objects are result of my long street walks in various cities of the Balkan.

The chosen windows are remnants of an era which has already ended and as such they are also gradually disappearing in the process of being redesigned. Deprived of their primary functional value, due to their out-datedness and rather quaint aesthetics, these old shop windows become non-places, metaphors of a society in transition and objects of nostalgic investment.

The strangeness of their design, the disparity of elements which are on show and the constant introduction of objects which are almost always comically out of place (the ubiquitous pots with plants) endow them with a specific visual identity, which could almost be termed as beauty. Some of them empty, yet others crammed with not only objects which are on sale, but also those of purely private value to the owners, these windows function as stages, which is often additionally accentuated by the theatrical way in which they are lit up at night.

Owing to their kaleidoscopic quality and their transient nature they possess a specific narrative potential - in a lapidary and disguised form they tell multilayered stories of the cities and their inhabitants.