Snow in Samarkand
23 Jun - 12 Sep 2011
SNOW IN SAMARKAND – Views from the Hinterland of War
Photographs by Daniel Schwartz
23 June - 12 September 2011
The exhibition confronts burning issues of the day. It takes us to Afghanistan and Central Asia and shows the history, geography and current state of a region that stretches from the Caspian Sea to the deserts of western china and from Kazakhstan in the north to Pakistan and Iran in the south. This region is constantly in the news as the scene of constant wars and latent conflicts.
In his work the internationally renowned Swiss photographer and author Daniel Schwartz examines the geographically heterogeneous and politically complex area of Central Asia both from the inside and from European, Chinese and Persian/Arab perspectives.
Central Asia’s mediating role between East and West dates back to prehistoric times. It was always a decisive factor in power politics. And it is not only since 9/11 and the subsequent military intervention in Afghanistan that the region has possessed geo-strategic and geo-economic importance.
The cycle of works on show here arose between 1995 and 2007 in the five Central Asian republics and Afghanistan and adjoining areas. For 14 years Schwartz has been travelling through this region, creating images both beguiling and dismaying – such as the seemingly timeless reception of Afghan refugees from a region hit by famine or the picture of Bam, the ruined city in Iran.
The photographs offer a humanist perception within the tradition of documentary photography. Located on the borderline between documentary and art, they show a keen eye for both the socio-political background and particular visual moments. The result is highly topical images.
Time and remembrance, present and past are the subjects of Daniel Schwartz’s work. They concern the dialogue between geography and history, showing how past events are still affecting today’s world as well as current developments. The photographs are both snapshots and historical documents. They take us to remote and supposedly familiar places, exposing asymmetries and traditional misunderstandings within the meeting of cultures.
Presented in Germany for the first time, the exhibition shows the pictures not chronologically or geographically but on an associative basis.
The exhibition and the two accompanying picture albums open up perspectives and connections that will make historians, geographers and military strategists re-examine their assumptions.
Born in 1955 in Olten, Switzerland, Daniel Schwartz studied photography at the Design School in Zurich from 1977 to 1980. From 1990 to 2005 he was on the staff of the cultural periodical “Du”. In 1987/88 he documented the architecture of the Great Wall of China and the changes in the landscape. In the 1990s he worked in the ecological disaster areas and conflict zones of South and South-East Asia, and later in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Testimony to this work is provided by the almost thousand-page “Snow in Samarkand: A Travel Report of Three Thousand Years” (2008) and the art book “Travelling Through the Eye of History” (2009).
Schwartz has had numerous one-man exhibitions in such places as Kunsthaus Zurich, Imperial Palace Museum, Beijing, Kunstmuseum Solothurn and, as part of the Billboard Programme, Kunsthaus Bregenz. He has taken part twice in group exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. In summer 2011 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts showed a series of his Afghanistan images.
His “Travelling Through the Eye of History”, containing 165 photographs, has been published by Thames & Hudson of London to coincide with the exhibition.
It is also available in a special limited edition of fifty numbered copies, each with an original black-and-white photograph.
Photographs by Daniel Schwartz
23 June - 12 September 2011
The exhibition confronts burning issues of the day. It takes us to Afghanistan and Central Asia and shows the history, geography and current state of a region that stretches from the Caspian Sea to the deserts of western china and from Kazakhstan in the north to Pakistan and Iran in the south. This region is constantly in the news as the scene of constant wars and latent conflicts.
In his work the internationally renowned Swiss photographer and author Daniel Schwartz examines the geographically heterogeneous and politically complex area of Central Asia both from the inside and from European, Chinese and Persian/Arab perspectives.
Central Asia’s mediating role between East and West dates back to prehistoric times. It was always a decisive factor in power politics. And it is not only since 9/11 and the subsequent military intervention in Afghanistan that the region has possessed geo-strategic and geo-economic importance.
The cycle of works on show here arose between 1995 and 2007 in the five Central Asian republics and Afghanistan and adjoining areas. For 14 years Schwartz has been travelling through this region, creating images both beguiling and dismaying – such as the seemingly timeless reception of Afghan refugees from a region hit by famine or the picture of Bam, the ruined city in Iran.
The photographs offer a humanist perception within the tradition of documentary photography. Located on the borderline between documentary and art, they show a keen eye for both the socio-political background and particular visual moments. The result is highly topical images.
Time and remembrance, present and past are the subjects of Daniel Schwartz’s work. They concern the dialogue between geography and history, showing how past events are still affecting today’s world as well as current developments. The photographs are both snapshots and historical documents. They take us to remote and supposedly familiar places, exposing asymmetries and traditional misunderstandings within the meeting of cultures.
Presented in Germany for the first time, the exhibition shows the pictures not chronologically or geographically but on an associative basis.
The exhibition and the two accompanying picture albums open up perspectives and connections that will make historians, geographers and military strategists re-examine their assumptions.
Born in 1955 in Olten, Switzerland, Daniel Schwartz studied photography at the Design School in Zurich from 1977 to 1980. From 1990 to 2005 he was on the staff of the cultural periodical “Du”. In 1987/88 he documented the architecture of the Great Wall of China and the changes in the landscape. In the 1990s he worked in the ecological disaster areas and conflict zones of South and South-East Asia, and later in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Testimony to this work is provided by the almost thousand-page “Snow in Samarkand: A Travel Report of Three Thousand Years” (2008) and the art book “Travelling Through the Eye of History” (2009).
Schwartz has had numerous one-man exhibitions in such places as Kunsthaus Zurich, Imperial Palace Museum, Beijing, Kunstmuseum Solothurn and, as part of the Billboard Programme, Kunsthaus Bregenz. He has taken part twice in group exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. In summer 2011 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts showed a series of his Afghanistan images.
His “Travelling Through the Eye of History”, containing 165 photographs, has been published by Thames & Hudson of London to coincide with the exhibition.
It is also available in a special limited edition of fifty numbered copies, each with an original black-and-white photograph.