Arnold Odermatt Exhibition

Koenig & Clinton

poster for Arnold Odermatt Exhibition

This event has ended.

These photographs were taken from the 1950's through the 70's while Odermatt was a police officer and official police photographer of the canton of Nidwalden, Switzerland. Joining the police force in 1948, when he was in his twenties, Odermatt assembled a large inventory of "accident " photographs. During his career, he documented countless vehicular mishaps along Nidwalden's treacherous roads as well as its quiet village streets. Arriving at the scene of an accident, Odermatt would take one set of photographs for the police and insurance files, and another set for himself.

The photographs, all black and white, are a narrative of absence. The contrast of crushed metal against breathtaking views of mountains and countryside or glimpses of quaint small town quietude creates a strange tension. The images cross over from the forensic to the elegiac and back again. Though hardly clinical, the images accurately depict numerous impacts, and their resulting effects upon structures and vessels. Evidence of the victims however, is stringently excluded. Stripped of this evidence, the viewer can contemplate folds in metal, and pinpoints of light reflected in shards of glass from a vantage point that adds the necessary distance that is required for aesthetic consideration. Thus Odermatt's work suggests an innate and nuanced eye for formalist inventions, moving the photographs beyond the realm of mere documentation into one of exquisitely poignant works of art.

Media

Schedule

from July 26, 2010 to September 10, 2010

Artist(s)

Arnold Odermatt

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