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Austrian Photographer Spends Hours Waiting for Museum Goers to Match Artwork and the Results Are Priceless

People Matching Artworks
People Matching Artworks | © and Courtesy of Stefan Draschan / Tumblr

Austrian photographer Stefan Draschan spends hours upon hours hanging around museums, but it’s not because he loves the art. It’s because he’s waiting for his own art to appear in his camera frame, waiting for museum goers to come along who perfectly match the artwork they are looking at.

The project takes a lot of patience because incredibly, Draschan’s photos are not staged. He will literally wait all day for someone to come along who happens, by chance, to be twinning with the exhibition he’s attending. And Draschan has to be sly too, as he snaps the photos in secret without his subjects being aware that their artsy coincidence is being captured on camera.

People Matching Artworks

In this way, the series resembles an undercover version of the VanGoYourself challenge, an art platform that encourages people to pose as their favourite famous artworks, or the museum-doppelgänger trend, where people snap pics in front of paintings that resemble them.

People Matching Artworks

The unique beauty of People Matching Artworks, however, is that the entire experiment in a way relies on divine timing. The right person has to approach the right piece of art at the right time and Draschan needs to be there to capture it.

People Matching Artworks

Magically, the stars seem to align for the photographer quite a lot and the photographs are living proof of this.

People Matching Artworks

The project definitely takes an intense amount of patience – how long would one have to wait for someone who perfectly matches Monet’s Water Lilies to pop into the room – but judging by people’s reaction to the images online, the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.

People Matching Artworks

In a perfect marriage of fashion, fine art and photography, Draschan’s ultra meta images entertain, impress and generally make people happy.

People Matching Artworks

The photographer doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon so word to the wise, if you’re around Paris, Vienna or Berlin and visiting a museum, you may end up on candid camera, so definitely dress to impress!

People Matching Artworks
People Matching Artworks
People Matching Artworks
People Matching Artworks
People Matching Artworks

About the author

Born and raised in LA, India studied Drama at the University of Southern California before shifting her focus to the visual arts. After moving to London in 2013, she co-founded the iOS app ArtAttack which focused on connecting emerging artistic talent with galleries and collectors. Following that she worked at Albany Arts Communications, a boutique Art PR firm in Fitzrovia before joining Culture Trip. Aside from art and theatre, India's other passions include travel, food, books and dance.

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