Within the context of their project "Shops with History – Sundry Goods in Vienna", Martin Frey and Philipp Graf have been photographing the old shopfronts of long-established Viennese businesses since 2009. They have now captured over 500 businesses with their cameras, many of them can already be viewed in their online gallery: www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at.

In their comparative study SPURENSUCHE, they pick a specific point in time to go through their collection and choose a selection of businesses, most of which no longer exist. They go to their locations and record the current state of things there. The photos of the old businesses are then juxtaposed with this new situation.

The results of the first SPURENSUCHE 2018 were presented at five exhibitions in Vienna and Lower Austria: these were accompanied by a photobook with the comparative pairings of the shopfront pictures.

In the summer of 2023, Martin Frey and Philipp Graf once again selected a group of shopfronts and juxtaposed the changes with their own photographs from years past. The interval between the comparative images was now substantially longer, extending up to 10 years. It is scarcely surprising that once again some shopfronts have completely vanished from the cityscape. Among those which still exist, there have been renovations, adaptations and even the construction of an entirely new shopfront.

The photo book with 28 picture pairs is published in a limited and signed edition of 150 copies, german/english.