Reto Camenisch

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Reto Camenisch (born April 29, 1958 in Thun ) is a Swiss photographer and filmmaker.

Life

Camenisch grew up in the city of Thun. In 1964 his father Edmond Camenisch died in a hunting accident. As a student at a commercial college, he became interested in photography when he was 15 . 1978 the opening of the own photo studio followed . Since 1982 he has been working as a freelance portrait and reportage photographer for national (Du, Das Magazin, NZZ weekend & Zeitbilder) and international ( FAZ Magazin , Geo ) print media, as well as for advertising. From 1983 he took part in individual group exhibitions, and since 2001 he has intensified exhibition activities at home and abroad. Central work complexes lead to four publications: Bürgerbilder (1993), Bluesland (1997), Reto Camenisch - Zeit (2006) and Berge Pilger Orte (2011). From 1990 onwards, his meeting with Richard Avedon shaped him artistically . Countless artist portraits were created, especially of musicians. This was followed by extensive travel activities, including several stays in the Mississippi Delta between 1992 and 1997 . In 2003 he stopped working with almost all print media and turned his back on photojournalism. Since then he has concentrated on artistic work. He is represented by the Bernhard Bischoff Gallery, Bern and the Stephan Witschi Gallery, Zurich. Since 1990 Reto Camenisch has also been working as a freelance lecturer in photography and since 2011 director of studies for "Editorial Photography" at the Swiss journalism school MAZ in Lucerne.

Prizes and awards

  • 1985 Photo Prize of the Canton of Bern,
  • 1993 European Kodak Gold Award for best Swiss portrait photographer.
  • 1999 Culture Prize of the City of Thun.
  • 2012 Nomination Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels "Most beautiful photo book 2012" / Berge Pilger Orte
  • 2014 Art in Architecture | Extension building in Kühlewil retirement home

plant

Camenisch's work follows the tradition of analog, black and white reportage and portrait photography. Polaroid strips that have been left standing, the exposure of the negatives to baryta paper and the rejection of digital technologies are signs of the authentic, chemically and manually developed photo. The development of his oeuvre can be understood as a continuous process of slowing down, internalizing and deepening: from the hectic pace of news photography to contemplative waiting for the picture, from people to landscape, from small and medium to large formats. The early portraits are characterized by a strong, often format-breaking presence of the models without any staging frippery . The neutral background hides everything that is not physical and creates moments of great immediacy. At the end of the 1980s, in addition to the psychological one, a sociological surveying gaze gains in importance: The portrayed now appear embedded in their lifeworld context, for example in the work block of Citizens' Pictures, an inventory of possible and impossible figures of Thun.

The gloomy tonality that pervades the entire later work is already inherent in the early portrait work. The sky is leaden, the afternoon pitch black - in search of the blues , Camenisch comes across a strange, ailing, almost deserted stretch of land in the Mississippi Delta. The project Bluesland, a poetic confession to melancholy, turns out to be an echo room of his own childhood experiences for the artist: He precedes the USA pictures with a series of his father's accident scene. The search for harmony between the inside and outside world subsequently became more and more decisive: Camenisch has been working almost exclusively with the 4x5 inch camera since 1999. On day-long hikes in Entlebuch , New Zealand or Lanzarote, often only a single picture emerges, which, far from any postcard idyll, refers to basic psychological states. In finely flowing black values, Camenisch elevates the visible world to a symbol of a timeless, often melancholy state of mind.

Works

His works can be seen in:

  • Lausanne, Musée de l'Elysée
  • New York, Guggenheim Collection
  • Thun, Art Museum Thun
  • Wellington, New Zealand Center for Photography
  • Winterthur, Winterthur Photo Museum
  • Winterthur, Swiss Photo Foundation
  • Zurich, Wedekind Foundation
  • Stuttgart, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg
  • Bern, Berner Kantonalbank Bern
  • DC Bank of Bern

Monographs

Movies

  • «Heicho» - Walter Liniger's Blues. - Switzerland / USA, 61 min, documentary (www.heicho-derfilm.ch)

Remarks

  1. ↑ This does not mean the mouth region of the Mississippi south of Baton Rouge , Louisiana , but a region on the Mississippi in the state of the same name, see →  Lower Mississippi Delta Region

literature

  • Von Horizonten, Set 8 from the collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur 2011
  • Cahier Landscape in Change, Kunstmuseum Thun 2009. The return of physiognomy. 10èmes Journées photographiques de Bienne 2006.
  • 10th Biel Photography Days 2006. Bienne 2006. Edited by Nicolas Bourquin and Sven Ehmann. Biel: 2006.
  • Collection Kunstmuseum Thun, Kunstmuseum Thun 2007
  • Urs Stahel: «Someone goes out to come home». In: Reto Camenisch - Time. Bern: Benteli Verlag, 2006.
  • Kerstin Stremmel: «On the Abyss». In: Reto Camenisch - Time. Bern: Benteli Verlag, 2006.
  • Denis Brudna: «Reto Camenisch / Time». In: Photonews, 11, 2006
  • Mark Derby, Konrad Tobler: «Reto Camenisch. Interview with Mark Derby / Evoking the first day ». In: New Zealand Journal of Photography, 54, 2004, pp. 5-11.
  • Reto Camenisch. Zurich, Römerapotheke Gallery, 2003. Text: Konrad Tobler. Zurich: Galerie Römerapotheke, 2003.
  • Béatrice von Matt: «The truth of the landscape». In: Berge Pilger Orte. Zurich: Edition Stephan Witschi, 2012.
  • Bernhard Giger: «The Wanderer Photographer». In: Reto Camenisch portraits. Zurich: Edition Stephan Witschi, 2012.
  • Marco Meier: "The sense of proportion of melancholy". In: Reto Camenisch portraits. Zurich: Edition Stephan Witschi, 2012.
  • Bänz Friedli: «Waiting for Sam». In: Reto Camenisch portraits. Zurich: Edition Stephan Witschi, 2012.
  • Konrad Tobler: “Photo taken from nature” Notes on the relationship between photography and nature. 2013 / For the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Palazzo Liestal.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.camenisch.ch/admin/data/cvdata/stahel.pdf
  2. ↑ http://www.camenisch.ch/admin/data/cvdata/Stremmel.pdf
  3. ↑ http://www.camenisch.ch/admin/data/cvdata/Tobler.pdf
  4. ↑ http://www.camenisch.ch/admin/data/cvdata/BeatricevonMatt.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Camenisch, Reto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Thun , Switzerland