I have chosen to research a photobook by Michael Schmidt named “Berlin Nach 45”. Michael Schmidt’s photographs have always focused on his hometown of Berlin especially in book format-a fundamental element of his work. One of his most important bodies of work about Berlin, Berlin Nach 1945, has never before been published as a whole. It is particularly significant at this time, given the extreme urban, social, artistic, and general developmental changes Berlin has undergone within recent years. This series documents a place which, as recently as 1980, was still very much marred by World War II, and provides an impressive visual record of a city in a state of flux.
Who is the photographer?
The photographer is Michael Schmidt and he perceives and reacts to the world, offering through “fragmentation, condensation, abstraction” a “sense of space distorted in depth”, in which “existence is hollowed out to its extremes” that “take his subjects out of their historical anchorage” to offer a “harsh and completely unique view of the fragility of human existence” – “a subjective, deeply felt work of the life and suffering of people in the shadow of Berlin.”
Thomas Weski and Laura Bielau stated that “This is the strength of Michael Schmidt’s work. An ability to transcend the present – its present – and to fragment it in order to better represent it. Creations with shallow backgrounds, which play with nuances and break free from simple black and white to offer a shade of grey, evoking the rainy sky of Berlin. A true love letter, tortured, raw, deep and complex, to the city where it was born, grew and disappeared.”
Deconstructing the narrative, concept and design
The book feels quite heavy as it is a hardback book and also has a nice textured front and back cover which is woven. It has quite a rough texture to it and contains a simple front cover that is blue coloured, with the title displaying Schmidt’s name and “Berlin nach 45”. The book is also contained within a cardboard case which is cream coloured and quite solid as well with staples punched into the side of it. The title translates to “Berlin after 1945”, meaning these are photographs that are displayed from the later on stages of the city after the events of WWII. The entire concept of the photobook itself is about how the war has impacted society and the landscape of the city itself, capturing both urban and rural landscape photography to capture what everything really looks like after the tragic events of the war.
Berlin nach 45: a work of 55 pictures taken with a Linhoff camers, 13 x 18 centimeter negatives enlarged to 16 x 22 prints on paper 24 x 30cm in size.
Originally, the series was supposed to be called ‘Berlin im Wiederaufban nach 1945 (Berlin During Reconstruction after 1945), but Schmidt quickly realised that such a title would trigger the wrong conclusion: “reconstruction” would imply activity and change. But in these pictures, which appear here for the first time in book form, do not depict any people. They convey a threatening sense of silence, in which the sounds of battle still echo. The pictures in Berlin nach 45 were taken entirely in the section of Kreuzberg in Berlin.