
Intensivstationen
- Publisher
- Steidl
- Year
- 2026
- ISBN
- 978-3-95829-990-0
- Specifications
- Hardback
27.4 x 24 cm
152 pages
139 images
German
In his controversial 2020 book Ischgl, Lois Hechenblaikner focused his camera on the exhibitionistic stage of the Alpine tourism industry, the excesses of the party scene and event culture. Now in Intensivstationen (“intensive care units”), he takes a look behind the scenes at the après-ski bars, with all their illusionistic romanticism, to where things are downright clinical. Here the cold heart of a thoroughly organized toxication factory is revealed, where the customer is not king but consumer—simply put: the more you drink, the more you pay. For hidden in the basement of these bars are complex, computer-controlled dispensing systems that pump alcoholic beverages up to the center of the action with milliliter precision: beer, schnapps, mulled wine and much more. Hechenblaikner ironically calls these facilities, designed for nothing more than maximum alcohol supply, “intensive care units”—hopefully not an indication of where happy revelers find themselves at the end of a long night.