U-ni-ty merges two artistic traditions, treating photography both as a medium for describing personal experience and as a vast, impersonal resource created by the mass media. In its entirety, the exhibition explores the emotional weight of history, the power of ideological symbols, and the relationship of the individual to the body politic.
Michael Schmidt’s first book of photographs, a study of the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, was published in 1973. In 1976 he founded the Werkstatt für Photographie in Kreuzberg. A selection from his series “Waffenruhe” (“Ceasefire”) was presented at The Museum of Modern Art in the exhibition New Photography 4 in 1988.
Schmidt’s eighth book, U-ni-ty, was published this year (1996) by Scalo, Zurich. It is distributed in North America by D.A.P., New York.
©1998 The Museum of Modern Art, New York
U-NI-TY.
Photographs by Michael Schmidt.
Scalo, Zürich, 1996. 314 pp., numerous duotone illustrations, 7½x10½”.
ASX CHANNEL: Michael Schmidt
For more of American Suburb X, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
All images © copyright the photographer and/or publisher
