Brian McKee in Vienna

VIENNA—Brian McKee’s photographs are haunting visions of deserted spaces. Shooting the ruins of once-populated urban areas, McKee finds presence in absence. His works are universally devoid of people, yet they possess a dramatic quality that suggests the life that once filled the old hallways and rooms. This comes predominantly from his ability to capture brilliant color and natural light, elements that imbue the voids with energy and mystery.

Having previously worked in India, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan, McKee’s gaze tends to focus more on the politically created ruins of the East than anything to be found in his home base of New York. His latest series of works, “Structural Memory,” is no exception. Composed of pictures he took in Lebanon after the 2006 Lebanon War, “Structural Memory” reveals the evolution of the artist’s process from straightforward film photography to the digital overlay of multiple images (also shot on film). The result is a body of dynamic narrative works that show much more than the single snapshot moment of traditional photography. Fourteen of them are currently on view at Vienna’s Galerie Hilger Contemporary, through May 10.

Within each work, layered impressions of a place play off of and echo one another, compelling the viewer to question how the various parts form a cohesive whole. Given the location and timing of the photographs, as well as the artist’s past endeavors, it’s hard not to see “Structural Memory” as a diffuse political statement about the damaging effects of war. But McKee insists that a viewer’s engagement with a work is more important than the narrative they construct. As McKee says, “It is not an image that you can just approach and dismiss as a visual sound bite or clipping from one of any number of nameless media sources. The images force you to interact, if even for a brief moment.”

Here are Brian McKee’s pick for other shows to see this weekend in Vienna:

1. Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint at Kunsthalle Wien, through June 8

“A wonderful exhibition that brings us what has been, until now, a little-viewed series of 15 pieces titled ‘Drawing Restraint.’ The images are both somber and bright, and range from his early studio experiments that test the limits of his physicality to work done in conjunction with his film Drawing Restraint 9, in which he stars alongside his partner, Björk. It would be a shame to miss this show on any visit to Vienna.”

2. Erwin Wurm: Hypnose II at Galerie Krinzinger, through May 23  

“Erwin Wurm always surprises us, and this show is no exception. Whether he is making photographic documents, which he calls sculptures, melting a model of the Guggenheim, or turning a car into his iconic piece Fat Car, Wurm always plays with us and our perception of how we view everyday objects and events.”

3. Michal Budny: Winter at Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, though April 19

“Budny is a painter who has been well known in Europe for many years and whose sense of space and color has always fascinated me. These new works are large-scale landscapes that seem representational and yet abstract, with an amazing range of tonal quality.”

4. Margherita Spiluttini: Kunst Dokumente at Christine König Galerie, through April 26th

“Spiluttini has been working for years making large-scale color photographs of architectural and natural spaces. This most recent show of her work at the König gallery brings together some of her best work from the past decade, during which she has photographed spaces ranging from those by artists such as Herzog and de Meuron all the way to empty landscapes and mined countryside.”