Joachim Schmid: Selected Photoworks 1982-2007

About

For the last 25 years Joachim Schmid (b.1955) has challenged the traditional and prevailing idea of 'art photography'. Instead, he has championed the importance of photographs that are produced and seen everday; ranging from passport photos, to high street studio portraits, ID cards and, more recently, the Internet.
In Binder von der Strasse (Pictures from the Street, ongoing since 1982) Schmid has collected discarded photographs from around the world, revealing the bizzare in the ordinary and overlooked. The exhibition also includes work from Photogenetic Drafts (1991). Using negatives a studio photographer had cut in half to prevent further use, Schmid has created ironic and unsettling photo-collages that play on the predictability of the commercial studio portrait. The exhibition will premier two multi-channel digital photo installations, Tausend Himmel (Thousand Skies, 2005) and Menschen und Dinge (People and Objects, 2006).
Schmid's interest in collecting and archiving photographs reflects a concern with photography as an all-encompassing discourse that runs throughout the public and private spheres of our lives.