Tag: own photographs

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Steuerfreie Einkünfte

Following a dispute with the fiscal authorities about taxable income and tax-deductible expenses, I started playing with the tax inspectors. What expenses are deductible, what income is taxable, and what income is free of tax? It’s a tricky field, however, there’s one thing that’s clearly free of tax, and that is money found in the street. If finding things in the street is your work, related expenses are deductible. For the past ten years picking up money was one of my works, Steuerfreie Einkünfte. I made annual inventories of the found money in book form with photographs of all the coins and notes I found. A complete ten volumes report is now available in an edition of ten copies. The price of the edition is determined by the total of the found money (tax-free income of 141.51 €) plus the cost for printing the reports (tax-deductible expenses of 83.72 € per copy). A signed and numbered certificate states the value of the work.
2021
digital print, colour
10 volumes, 14.8 x 10.5 cm each, total of 844 pages
softcover, sewn
with a certificate of value, numbered and signed
in a slipcase
limited edition of 10 copies
225.23 €


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Il Mare

A meditation on the sea and our ideas about the sea in the course of its exploration, inspired by a secondhand paperback I discovered in a street vendor’s wave-like pile of books in Rome.
2019
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 240 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies
24 €

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Art Peace China Daily

In springtime 2018 I spent a few weeks inside the modern world’s dystopian dream, living under constant video surveillance and being identified by face recognition software wherever I went. The authorities aim to control everybody and everything with an ever-growing number of cameras. The daily paper informed me of whatever anomalies the omnipresent cameras recorded and also what had escaped them. Art Peace China Daily is the report of my sojourn in this country.
2018
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 72 pages
softcover, perfect bound
100 copies
16 €

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Fotobuch

What do a Marilyn Monroe poster, a fast food menu, a postcard rack, a hairdresser’s model collection, a Che Guevara portrait, and a lost cat poster have in common? Nothing, except that they are photographs displayed in public space that all ended up in my archive of photographs gathered from around the world over fifteen years. Removed from their original context and presented without any comment, these photographs of photographs turn out to be a miscellaneous reflection of popular obsessions, fantasies, and desires that become apparent in the everyday use of photography. The book is a twin of my Bilderbuch, maybe it’s my only real photo book.
2018
digital print, colour
21 x 14.8 cm, 120 pages
softcover, perfect bound
100 copies
32 €


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Vom Gehen

In late autumn 1974, Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris. In the logbook of his journey he mentioned the village I grew up in and that I had left a few months before he passed through it. His three words in Vom Gehen im Eis / Of Walking in Ice are possibly the only literary mention of the village. Forty-two years later I repeated one leg of Werner Herzog’s walk, from Burgfelden to Dotternhausen. Just like him, I passed through the village I grew up in without stopping. Vom Gehen is my report of the walk.
2017
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 72 pages
softcover, perfect bound
100 copies
16 €

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Vom Gehen (2017)

In late autumn 1974, Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris. In the logbook of his journey he mentioned the village I grew up in and that I had left a few months before he passed through it. His three words in Vom Gehen im Eis / Of Walking in Ice are possibly the only literary mention of the village. Forty-two years later I repeated one leg of Werner Herzog’s walk, from Burgfelden to Dotternhausen. Just like him, I passed through the village I grew up in without stopping. Vom Gehen is my report of the walk.
Sixteen pigment ink prints, 30 x 40 cm each, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP

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E-Book

E is the most commonly used letter in many languages including Dutch, English, French, and German. Writing a few sentences without an E is difficult, and writing an entire book without one single E seems impossible. With La Disparition, Georges Perec did exactly that. E-Book is its counterpart with E being the only letter that shows up on its pages. The book’s layout is based on a letter written to Elisabeth Tonnard. The words of the letter remain invisible but every E is included in the form of a photograph.
The various Ees were photographed between January and October 2015 in Amsterdam, Berlin, Weimar, Florence, Venice, Leerdam, Middelburg, New York, Ravenna, ’s-Hertogenbosch, and Rotterdam.
E-Book is printed on paper, a digital version is not available.
2016
digital print, b/w
21 x 14.8 cm, 120 pages
softcover with stamped dust jacket, sewn
100 copies

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Viaggio in Italia

A notional journey through Italy based on maps, memory, and postcards.
2015 by P420 Arte Contemporanea, Bologna
digital print, colour
23.5 x 16.5 cm, 68 pages
softcover, sewn
200 copies
ISBN 978-88-98476-07-7
20 copies with an enclosed postcard, numbered and signed

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Viaggio in Italia (2015)

A notional journey through Italy based on maps, memory, and postcards. The images are derived from postcards collected during various trips through Italy between 1989 and 2015.
An artist book of the same name was published by P420 Arte Contemporanea on the occasion of an exhibition in Bologna in 2015.
Eight pigment ink prints, 40 x 30 cm each, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP

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Souvenirs

Thirty-two photographs of spoons that I collected over twenty-five years of traveling (1983–2008).
This book was first published in 2010. The second edition is colour instead of black and white and re-designed in a different format.
second edition 2015
digital print, colour
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 72 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies
20 € (last copies)

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Around the World in Eighty Minutes

A World Expo may have made sense a century ago but since the invention of television the idea seems obsolete. In Shanghai, China, the basic premise is to wait in lines; incredibly long lines. Occasionally, a speaker system announces three hours waiting time for this pavilion, seven hours here, five hours there. Queuing for hours to visit something I never wanted to see is not my idea of fun. Yet here I am, with a group of students I’m obliged to accompany, watching our tour guide hand out hats to make sure we look as ridiculous as every other tour group. Fortunately, it isn’t long before I lose them but what do you do in a world exhibition filled with several hundred thousand Chinese? Over a cup of coffee I forge a plan: Around the World in Eighty Minutes.
The plan is to walk around the site without entering a single pavilion. In front of each pavilion, I take a self-portrait in the style of the modern tourist: camera at arm’s length with the attraction behind me. “I was there,” the picture says. So I don my hat and begin the journey, visiting about eighty countries and spending only a minute in each without even pausing to examine the pictures. I miss a country or two, but that’s to be expected when you travel in a rush.
This book was first published in 2011. The original print-on-demand edition is discontinued and replaced by this edition.
2015
digital print, colour
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 180 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies

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Souvenirs (2010)

Photographs of spoons collected over twenty-five years of traveling.
Courtesy of Air France · British Airways · British Midland Airways · Café de Flore, Paris · Café New York, Budapest · Continental Airlines · Delta Air Lines · Iberia · KLM · KLM UK · Lufthansa · Mitropa · Museum of Modern Art, New York · Nola’s in Tiergarten, Berlin · Olympic Airlines · Orbis Grand Hotel, Łódź · Radisson Béke Hotel, Budapest · Savoy Hotel, Luxor · Schlosshotel im Grunewald, Berlin · Swissair · TAP Air Portugal · Tate Modern, London · Türk Hava Yollari · Varig (1983 – 2008).
Thirty-two c-prints, 13 x 18 cm each, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP

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Fifteen Minutes on Broadway

On September 29, 2014 I set up a surveillance camera on the sidewalk in front of the former home of Andy Warhol‘s factory on 33 West Union Square in Manhattan. The camera automatically took a photo every 30 seconds recording pedestrian traffic between 10:38 and 10:53 am. No celebrities were spotted during these fifteen minutes.
2014
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 72 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies
16 €

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Steuerfreie Einkünfte

Steuerfreie Einkünfte (tax-free income) is a new work consisting of annual reports that are published in book form.
2012 ongoing
print on demand, colour
20 x 13 cm each, variable number of pages
softcover, perfect bound
open editions
This series of print-on-demand books is discontinued due to the provider’s insufficient service. An edition of annual reports will be available when the project is completed.

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Around the World in Eighty Minutes

A World Expo may have made sense a century ago but since the invention of television the idea seems obsolete. In Shanghai, China, the basic premise is to wait in lines; incredibly long lines. Occasionally, a speaker system announces three hours waiting time for this pavilion, seven hours here, five hours there. Queuing for hours to visit something I never wanted to see is not my idea of fun. Yet here I am, with a group of students I’m obliged to accompany, watching our tour guide hand out hats to make sure we look as ridiculous as every other tour group. Fortunately, it isn’t long before I lose them but what do you do in a world exhibition filled with several hundred thousand Chinese? Over a cup of coffee I forge a plan: Around the World in Eighty Minutes.
The plan is to walk around the site without entering a single pavilion. In front of each pavilion, I take a self-portrait in the style of the modern tourist: camera at arm’s length with the attraction behind me. “I was there,” the picture says. So I don my hat and begin the journey, visiting about eighty countries and spending only a minute in each without even pausing to examine the pictures. I miss a country or two, but that’s to be expected when you travel in a rush.
2011
print on demand, colour
20 x 13 cm, 178 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition (discontinued in 2015)

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Souvenirs

Thirty-two photographs of spoons that I collected over twenty-five years of traveling (1983–2008).
2010
digital print, b/w
9.5 x 13 cm, 40 pages
softcover, perfect bound
50 copies

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Joachim Schmid Is Martin Parr · Martin Parr Is Joachim Schmid

In September 2009 Martin Parr sent me his VIP pass to the Berlin Art Forum, that he had recently received and knew full well, he would be unable to attend. I saw this as an opportunity to visit the fair and take photos in the spirit of Martin Parr. I was to be Martin Parr for the 23rd September. For those that know anything about my work, this must be a surprise, as my career in the art world is based entirely on orchestrating other people’s photographs.
I then invited Martin to be Joachim Schmid, and he decided to trawl through the “Martin Parr, We Love You” group on Flickr. This was established a few years ago as a forum for photographers who had been seemingly influenced by his photographic language. So in the spirit of Joachim Schmid, Martin looked for the most “Parr-like” images. The resulting two sets of images are what you will find on the pages of Joachim Schmid is Martin Parr · Martin Parr is Joachim Schmid.
2009
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 40 pages
softcover (hardcover with dust jacket on request)
open edition / discontinued

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Tausend Himmel

The pictures in Tausend Himmel (Thousand Skies or Thousand Heavens) are a small selection from a vast collection. At first glance they appear to be photographs of clouds, of the sky, and of helicopters. In fact, they are photographs of sounds – the sounds of helicopters. I took them to help me deal with a hearing condition called hyperacusis. After more than a year and two thousand photographs later, I had nearly stopped noticing why I started taking them. I guess, in this way, the exercise could be considered a complete success.
The book was published to co-incide with a presentation of Tausend Himmel, a multi-channel digital photo installation, as part of the exhibition Joachim Schmid. Selected Photoworks 1982–2007 at The Photographers’ Gallery.
2007 by Photographers’ Gallery, London
offset, colour
10.5 x 14 cm, 64 pages
softcover, perfect bound
1,000 copies
ISBN 9780907879794

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Steuerfreie Einkünfte (2011–2020)

Steuerfreie Einkünfte (tax-free income) grew directly out of the long-time project Bilder von der Straße. Looking out for abandonded photographs in the streets, it was inevitable that I found other things, too, such as money. Usually, this would be in the form of small coins but occasionally, I would find a banknote. For many years I simply picked all these up and put them in my wallet. In 2011, I began to make annual inventories of the found money after an interesting dispute with the fiscal authorities about tax-deductible expenses and the character of some of my works such as Bilder von der Straße.
The project’s accounting is public. A complete report was published in book form after the ten-year project was completed.

Tax-free income accumulated in
2011: CAD 0.25 + DEM 0.01 + EUR 0.97 + GBP 0.06 + USD 0.20 – Total: EUR 1.37
2012: CAD 0.01 + CHF 1.00 + EUR 4.49 + PLN 0.04 + USD 1.67 – Total: EUR 6.34
2013: EUR 19.30 + GBP 0.28 + MAD 5.00 + PLN 2.02 + USD 0.42 $ – Total: EUR 20.87
2014: CHF 0.05 + DKK 1.00 + EUR 23.63 + GBP 0.01 + MXN 0.10 + USD 3.60 $ – Total: EUR 26.77
2015: BGN 0.01 + CAD 0.05 + CHF 0.05 + DDM 0.20 + DEM 0.01 + EUR 24.51 + TRY 0.10 + USD 5.59 – Total: EUR 29.91
2016: CHF 0.50 + DKK 2.50 + EUR 7.02 + GBP 1.05 + USD 0.58 – Total: EUR 9.53
2017: EUR 9.36 + USD 0.42 – Total: EUR 9.71
2018: CNY 1.20 + CZK 2.00 + EUR 8.72 + GBP 0.05 + THB 0.50 – Total: EUR 9.03
2019: BRL 0.60 + CZK 1.00 + EUR 13.39 + PLN 0.10 – Total: EUR 13.59
2020: EUR 14.39 – Total: EUR 14.39

Total 2011–2020: EUR 141.51
BGN 0,01
BRL 0,60
CAD 0,31
CHF 1,60
CNY 1,20
CZK 3,00
DDM 0,20
DEM 0,02
DKK 3,50
EUR 125,78
GBP 1,45
MAD 5,00
MXN 0,10
PLN 2,16
THB 0,50
TRY 0,10
USD 12,48

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Tausend Himmel (2005)

The pictures in Tausend Himmel (Thousand Skies or Thousand Heavens) are a small selection from a vast collection. At first glance they appear to be photographs of clouds, of the sky, and of helicopters. In fact, they are photographs of sounds – the sounds of helicopters. I took them to help me deal with a hearing condition called hyperacusis. After more than a year and two thousand photographs later, I had nearly stopped noticing why I started taking them. I guess, in this way, the exercise could be considered a complete success.
JS, March 2007
Multichannel digital photo installation, 75 min. loop

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Very Miscellaneous (1996)


^ Fabrica, Brighton, 11 October to 1 November 1997


^ Hasselblad Center, Konstmuseet Göteborg 1999


^ Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs 2007

Very Miscellaneous is based on the George Garland Collection and the archive of newspapers at the West Sussex Record Office. The work was commissioned by PhotoWorks as part of the Country Life series, curated by Val Williams.
Variable cluster of seventy b/w photographs, appr. 20 x 30 cm each.
Six portraits and six texts are available as diptychs (one portrait and one text in any combination; b/w prints, 36 x 24 cm each, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP).