Props
Julian Irlinger

Props deals with the relationship between the economy, the public sphere, and art in the digital age. The book shows montaged images of the inside of the Frick Collection in New York, which is adorned with art and pieces of furniture. The collection was made accessible to the public after the death of its owner Henry Clay Frick. Julian Irlinger superimposes pictures drawn from the stock of images generated by two different virtual tours through the collection in the museum. He uses shots by a professional photographer that were commissioned by the Frick Collection and combines them with other images from a Google service team that have been published on their own platforms. Irlinger overlays a shot of a photographer with an almost identical picture from Google. The differences between a painstaking and cheap approach to the production of images are clearly visible: they symbolize the different economic interests of the people who have commissioned them.