In a series of black and white images of the German landscape made between 1987 and 1997, Michael Schmidt has forged a new pictorial language to deconstruct the world he observes. Concerned with light and form, Schmidt’s images contain a wealth of silver tones, a spectrum of rich greys which evolve from light to dark in mystical, imperceptible gradients. But the black and white filter is also a tool that allows Schmidt to neutralise the world, impeding the subjective perception of his viewer. It is through his editorial process, a process of montage, that Schmidt constructs an interior dialect, fashioning a self-contained world within the linear sequence of the book. Michael Schmidt was born in 1945 in Berlin. He passed away in Berlin on May 24, 2014, a few days after the printing of NATUR. Michael Schmidt produced some of the most significant bodies of photographs in the history of the medium and is renowned for his books, most notably, the projects Waffenruhe (1987), U-NI-TY (1996), Berlin nach 45 (2005), and Lebensmittel (2012). Published by MACK (London). 104 pages, 17.9 cm x 23.9 cm, hardcover, MACK (London).
