Michael Schmidt: Irgendwo

Somehow somewhere could also be anywhere and therefore always a bit like nowhere. Michael Schmidt’s photography testifies to this. He composes sequences of photographs for books and exhibitions. His definition of photography has little to do with recording distinguishing features, instead he makes a picture‑by‑picture documentary record of a place, of non‑places, of the inhabitants. The movements are tentative and yet they seem to want to subvert the whole process by virtue of their somewhat impatient character. Indeed, there could be another place somewhere else with other equally interesting inhabitants. Michael Schmidt has been propelled to the forefront of German photography by virtue of the epochally indifferent resonance of his images, not to mention the impact of the books “Waffenruhe” and “EIN‑HEIT”. He was the first German photographer to have an individual show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since then a second has followed, as well as participation in several themed exhibitions. Michael Schmidt’s project “Somewhere” aims directly at Germany’s “heart of darkness”, to appropriate Conrad’s metaphor for good or bad: here you witness mass architecture, the homely, the deeply provincial; here the people look like… the people in Berlin. And yet in Michael Schmidt’s photographs they evince a feeling or mood, which touches upon something dark and inveterate. However, if you ask Michael Schmidt what he has been up to, well, before you know it an anecdotal exchange has ensued and all that tenebrosity is dissolved in an instant.

Exhibitions:

Kunstverein Heilbronn, 4/2-10/4/2005

Oldenburger Kunstverein, 24/4-5/6/2005

Arp Mueum Bahnhof Rolandseck, 7/10-2/12/2005

Lindenau‑Museum, Altenburg, 5/3-7/5/2006

Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg, 25/6-17/9/2006