ABOUT

My name is Oliver Kofler.

I'm a husband, father, engineer, filmphotographer and skateboarder based in a small village in the italian alps called Sarnthein.

I've tinkered with photography on skate trips all my life, but after a serious injury during the 2015 Italian Skateboarding Championship, I started taking photos in earnest. I had surgery and couldn't skate for about 6 months. So I just sat around and fell into some kind of depression because I couldn't do anything creative. Luckily I found my dad's old digital camera and started taking pictures of my friends skating for about 2 months, but it really didn't feel special. For Christmas, my in-laws gave me their Pentax Me film camera and I shot my first role. Immediately after the first shutter button "click" I was stuck to filmphotography. When I started developing and printing in the darkroom it became a huge part of my life and I never stopped until then.

 

PUBLICATIONS:

  • 2016 "1/100 HOME OF THE FREE", photobook about life in San Francisco and New York City
  • 2017 "FIFTYEIGHT", zine about a journey through Sri Lanka
  • 2018 "STRANDED ON EARTH", photobook with thoughts and memoirs from my trip to Indonesia
  • 2020 "HIDDEN BEAUTY", documentation about the 1st lockdown in South Tyrol with photographs and texts. Published in collaboration with the design studio “StudioOX”
  • 2021 "ORDERLY CONFUSION", catalog of photographs focusing on the interplay of order and chaos in Japan
  • 2022 "THE PATH", zine with photographs taken during a walk through Bolzano

 

PROJECTS:

  • 2022 for 24WENTIQUATTRO, picture series
  • 2024 for PRANZEGG, photograph for the new wine "ELYSION"
  • 2024 for PETER BURCHIA, photographs for his new double single release on cassette and art catalog

 

EXHIBITIONS:

  • 2016 "1/100 Home of the Free", Sublime shop (Bz)
  • 2018 "Fiftyeight", Main entrance hospital (Bz)
  • 2019 "Stranded on Earth", Hotel Figl (Bz)
  • 2020 "Fiftyeight", Spazio resistenze (Bz)
  • 2021 "Orderly Confusion", LaSecondaLuna gallery (Laives)
  • 2021 "Orderly Confusion", multilingual media library (Merano)
  • 2022 Permanent exhibition at Hotel Figl with black/white photographs of the South Tyrolean mountains with a short poem
  • 2023 "Catalogo aperto 2023", Centro Trevi (Bz)
  • 2024 Permanent exhibition to the theme of “CURA” by the Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse & Südtiroler Künstlerbund at the main entrance of the hospital Bz
  • 2024 "Red Pill pop-up gallery", Wörtz Bäck, Stadtgasse 12, first floor (Bruneck)
  • 2025: “Rolling Culture – South Tyrol’s Skateboard History”, LaSecondaLuna gallery (Laives)
  • 2025/2026: “Slow Down” solo exhibition at the mountain photography museum Lumen
  • 2026: “A Moment After” solo exhibition at Silbersalz

 

 PRESS:

  • 2020 video interview on the creation of the "hidden beauty" project wirh StudioOx
  • 2020 article on the Zeitroom platform about the “hidden beauty” project
  • 2020 exclusive interview with Zeitroom
  • 2021 interview with salto.bz about the "orderly confusion" project
  • 2021 franzmagazine article
  • 2023 interview as winner of the “Catalogo Aperto 2023”
  • 2023 cover picture for the article in the Südtiroler Wirtschaftszeitung, about the call for art acquisitions on the theme of “CURA” by the Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse 2023
  • 2025 article in the IlFotografo magazine issue 357
  • 2026 franzmagazine article “Fotografare le Alpi #26”