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FAKE HOLYDAYS est une série de photographies en couleur sur l’univers surréaliste et baroque des vacances artificielles : skier à Dubaï, se relaxer sur une plage tropicale en plein Berlin, ou diner au Kremlin au cours d'un séjour en Turquie...
Issu de la photographie documentaire, REINER RIEDLER a parcouru depuis 2004, l'Europe, les Etats-Unis, le Moyen Orient puis la Chine et pose à travers FAKE HOLIDAYS, un regard perplexe sur la société des loisirs. Avec humour et un sens de l’absurde, il porte son attention sur les détails, joue avec la fantaisie des situations et il révèle, derrière ces environnements de cartonpate peuplés de créatures de fiction et d’authentiques vacanciers, la présence de la réalité là où elle ne devrait être qu’une illusion.
Simultanément à l’expostion à heartgalerie pendant le Mois de la Photo, FAKE HOLIDAYS est montrée en novembre 2008, à Bratislava en Slovaquie et à Vienne en Autriche à l’occasion du Mois Européen de la Photographie.
REINER RIEDLER a remporté le Grand Prix du Festival de Kaunas en Lithuanie en 2007 avec la série FAKE HOLIDAYS. En 2008, iI a participé à l’exposition de groupe Tourism World-All Inclusive à Francfort (Kunsthalle Schirn) et expose son travail dans de nombreux pays : Suisse (Images’08 Vevey), Finlande (Backlight Photofestival, Tampere), Chine (China PIP festival, Pingyao), Thaïlande (Goethe Institut/ Bangkok, Pologne (Lodz Photofestival), Slovenie (Ljubljana)....
Né en 1968 à Gmunden en Autriche, REINER RIEDLER a étudié l’Ethnologie à Vienne avant de se conscacrer entièrement à la photograpie dont il est passioné depuis l’age de 12 ans.
Il est membre de l’Agence Azenberger depuis 1993. Son travail documentaire socio-critique est publié régulièrement dans la la presse internationale : Le Monde 2, The New York Times, Fortune, La Republica, Stern, Der Spiegel, Focus, National Geographic Germany Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Facts, DU, Die Zeit. Il est l’auteur de deux livres, ‘’Ukraine : Photographies ‘’ publié en 2003 et sur l’ Albanie, ‘’Life at the Periphery’’ publié en 2001. La sortie du livre FAKE HOLIDAYS est prévue en 2009.

FAKE HOLIDAYS by REINER RIEDLER
Skiing in Dubai, relaxing on a tropical beach in Berlin, or going to the Kremlin for dinner during a trip to Turkey.Around the globe millions are being invested to create artificial worlds of ever increasing complexity that offer us new experiences and adventures – or at least give us an impression of them.
Simulation has set out to conquer our leisure time.When it snows in Europe’s largest ski hall, real snow drifts down onto the slopes: six-pointed crystals, no two the same.
Thus skiing in the “Allrounder Winter World” feels just like it does up in the mountains. Even the après-ski party in the hut cannot be distinguished from the Alpine original: the same music, the samedecor, the same drinks.
Often local people come for a visit even if they don’t ski; they live in a region with few attractions.
Here even the trampled snow that seems to be of no further use can be sold – for children’s birthday parties or for making an ice bar for cocktails. In the hall there is a snowboard ramp where a few teenagers train throughout the entire year.
In winter they travel to competitions in Austria and Switzerland,winning against the local young athletes who have to take a break from training during the summer.
Of course the Winter World cannot replace a vacation in the Alps, but hundreds of miles from the mountains it is better than nothing – much better, in fact.
The facility is part of a global trend that is changing the way we spend our free time and go on vacation: what we can’t have,we simulate.
Often it does not even require that much technology. In cities likeParis, London and Hamburg people enjoy a short vacation at the“city beach” after work: sipping cocktails on deck chairs and sticking their feet in the sand – under palm trees in pots.
Conversely, those who don’t want to miss big-city attractions when vacationing on remote beaches can find both in Turkey.Near Antalya, an entrepreneur has built a smaller-scale copy of the Istanbul Sultan’s palace Topkapi as a hotel. The Kremlin and Venice followed, and construction is underway at other sites.In Las Vegas you can enjoy a gondola ride through a replica of Venice complete with Italian songs performed by the gondolieri. Of course the water in the canals here isn’t as dirty as in the original.
“My Tropical Islands” near Berlin offers much more than a yearround palm-lined beach in the largest self-supporting hall in the world: to the sounds of recordings with twittering birds and the roar of the sea, visitors can also wander through a botanical garden whose attractions include a quite respectable teak tree.There are wooden huts from the South Sea, and a show program features artists from all of the usual vacation destinations. There are even a few costumed Brazilians who are presented as “real
Indios” that demonstrate rituals for visitors while offering them “taruba, the drink of the rain forest god” – for adults, not for children.
Florida Disneyworld hosts more visitors than Morocco, Tunisia,Egypt and Israel combined. New and more refined illusionary worlds are added every year, and the simulation business is booming.
Are we in danger of missing out on life itself if we spend so much time simulating it? Jens Lindworsky