New Catalog (Luke Batten & Jonathan Sadler)

A. Hitler and D. Eckart Obersalzburg to Hoher Goll No. 1, 2003-05, C-print

A. Hitler and D. Eckart Obersalzburg to Hoher Goll No. 18, 2003-05, C-print

New Catalogue was conceived as a “mock stock” catalogue showcasing decidedly non-commercial imagery. The team produces series that retain the crisp look of stock photography while inserting subjects that subvert the traditional uses of such imagery. The series A. Hitler and D. Eckart: Obersaltzberg to Hoher Goll concerns Obersalzberg, a mountainside near Berchtesgaden in the German Alps. It calls attention to the reconstruction and re-appropriation of a place burdened with historically weighty events.

Beginning in 1923, Adolf Hitler frequently visited Berchtesgarden and bought a house there in 1932—Haus Wachenfeld—with royalties from his book Mein Kampf. The country surrounding Hitler’s guesthouse and residence, referred to as the Berghof, eventually became a retreat for the Nazi elite. The area was invaded and bombed in 1945, and finally razed in 1952. It was not until 1995, however, that the land was ceded to the Bavarian government. Right wing Nazi sympathies still make pilgrimages to the site. The five-star InterContinental Berchtesgaden Resort which opened in February of 2005 stands at the site of Hermann Goring’s former residence, just 300 feet from the Berghof.

Luke Batten received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Jonathan Sadler received his MFA from the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. New Catalog has been exhibited in the 2005 Prague Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Walker Point Center for the Arts, among others, and is represented by Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery in Chicago.