Michael Schmidt - Berlin nach 1945 (MINT CONDITION, SHRINK-WRAPPED) - 2005

SUPER RARE OPPORTUNITY to purchase this FANTASTIC, VERY SOUGHT-AFTER Michael Schmidt title, one of the best publications by the legendary German photographer - in BRANDNEW CONDITION.

New, mint, unread; still originally shrink-wrapped in publisher's plastic foil.
COLLECTOR'S COPY.

Michael Schmidt is well-known for "Waffenruhe" ("Ceasefire") and for "Ein-heit" ("U-ni-ty").

"Michael Schmidt’s work has always focused on his hometown of Berlin and the book format has always been a fundamental element of his work. His book Waffenruhe is a renowned and highly collectible book of the late 20th century. One of his most important bodies of work about Berlin, Berlin nach 45, has never been published as a whole. It is particularly significant at this time, given the extreme urban and developmental changes Berlin has undergone within recent years. This series documents a big city which, as recently as 1980, was still very much marred by World War II. Focusing on the vacant sites, fallow land, and provisional architectonical arrangements - rigid city planning within this divided city — Schmidt has elaborated an impressive visual record of a city in a state of flux."
(from the publisher)

Steidl, Göttingen. 2005. First edition, first printing.

Clothbound hardcover with slipcase. 290 x 235 mm. 144 pages. 54 photos. Photos: Michael Schmidt. With an essay by Janos Frecot. Text in German.

Important German photobook title with the original slipcase - in perfect condition.

"Michael Schmidt was a German photographer. His subjects of interest were Berlin and "the weight of German identity in modern history." In 1965 Schmidt began photographing the streets, buildings and people of West Berlin in a semi-documentary approach. He went on to make a series of "ambitious projects" there, all in black and white and becoming more impressionistic, until his death in 2014. Each project was exhibited, then published as a book. Schmidt was a member of the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
In 1976, he founded the Werkstatt für Photographie (Workshop for Photography) in Berlin.
U-nit-y was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1996, Frauen was shown at the Berlin Biennale in 2010 and Lebensmittel, a series about the global food industry, at the Venice Biennale in 2013. A retrospective of his work was held at Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2010. His book Waffenruhe (1987) was included in Parr and Badger's The Photobook: A History, Volume II. He died in 2014, a couple of days after winning the Prix Pictet for Lebensmittel."
(Wikipedia)

"Schmidt was born on 6 October 1945 in East Berlin, five months after the German surrender ended World War II in Europe. His family crossed to West Berlin before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. He began photographing in 1965 when he was 20 years old. In 1976, Schmidt founded the Werkstatt für Photographie (Workshop for Photography) at the Volkhoschschule (Adult Education Center) in Berlin. The school "played a critical role in Berlin becoming a transatlantic forum of exchange between European and American photographers."
His early series about Berlin, Stadtlandschaft (Urban Landscapes) (1974–1975) and Berlin, Stadtbilder (Berlin, Urban Images) (1976–1980), "mapped out the city in which he lived in a semi-documentary way". Other series about Berlin include Berlin-Wedding (1976–1978); Berlin nach 45 (Berlin after 45) (1980); Waffenruhe (Ceasefire) (1985–1987), about the Berlin Wall and those affected by it; and Ein-heit (U-ni-ty) (1991–1994), contemporary urban landscapes and portraits from Germany mixed with historical images from the National Socialist / Nazism period, his response to the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of East and West Germany.
Natur (Nature) (1987–1997) contains black and white images of the German landscape. Lebensmittel (foodstuff) took seven years to make, with Schmidt travelling worldwide. He photographed "across the spectrum of mass food production, from factory farms" (including salmon farms and dairy farms), and bread factories, "to industrial slaughterhouses and on to plastic-wrapped, sanitised portions of food in supermarkets."
He died on 24 May 2014."
(Wikipedia)