Joachim Schmid: Searching and Finding. The Archive as an Artist's Quarry - Part I

Joachim Schmid is a Berlin based artist who has been working with found photographs since the early 1980s. He published over one hundred artist's books. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in numerous collections. In 2007 Photoworks and Steidl published a comprehensive monograph Joachim Schmid Photoworks 1982–2007 on the occasion of his first retrospective exhibition. In 2012 Johan & Levi Editore edited the book Joachim Schmid e le fotografie degli altri (Joachim Schmid and Other People's Photographs) on the occasion of an exhibition at Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea (MuFoCo) in Cinisello Balsamo, Milan.

When in 1989 he announced his now famous and often recalled motto: "Keine neuen Fotos bis die alten aufgebraucht sind!" (No new photographs until the old ones have been used up!) he was expressing a stance concerning the status of photography, the act of taking pictures and the consequences of this "addiction". Over the years this slogan has become more and more layered and nuanced, recently coming to an equally challenging appeal: "Please do not stop taking pictures!"

Through his work and meditation Joachim Schmid paves the way for reflections on photographic theory and practice, but also on phenomenology of memory and gaze, as well as on archival issues and procedures. In this lecture he will offer an insight into his artistic work.

On his biography and work see https://schmid.wordpress.com/.