Joachim Schmid

Joachim Schmid (born 1955) is a German artist, based in Berlin, who has worked with found photography since the early 1980s.

Early life and education

Schmid studied visual communication at Fachhochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd and Berlin University of the Arts from 1976 to 1981.

Career He began his career as a freelance critic and the publisher of Fotokritik, an iconoclastic and original contribution to West German photography. In the pages of Fotokritik and in his regular articles and lectures for other outlets, Schmid argued articulately and at times vehemently against prevailing, predominantly conservative notions of "art photography" and in favour of a broad, encompassing critique of photography as a form of cultural practice.

After ceasing publication of Fotokritik in 1987, Schmid focused on his own art production, based primarily on found photography and public image sources. Living near one of the largest flea markets in Berlin, he had already amassed a rich, deep, and varied collection of vernacular photography which formed the raw material for many of his works.

In 2007, Photoworks and Steidl published a comprehensive monograph Joachim Schmid Photoworks 1982–2007 on the occasion of his first retrospective exhibition at The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

He has published more than one hundred artist's books, and at the end of 2009, Schmid founded the ABC Artists' Books Cooperative, a group of artists dedicated to self-publishing using print-on-demand technology.

At Rencontres d'Arles in 2011, Schmid was one of five curators (along with Joan Fontcuberta, Martin Parr, Erik Kessels, and Clément Chéroux) to sign his name to the From Here On manifesto, announcing a new age of photography as represented by thirty-six artists from around the world.

In 2014, the Hillmann Photography Initiative at the Carnegie Museum of Art released a documentary about Schmid's work, Discarded: Joachim Schmid and the Anti-Museum.

Publications Publications by Schmid Erste allgemeine Altfotosammlung. Berlin: Edition Fricke and Schmid, 1991. . Bilder von der Straße. Berlin: Edition Fricke and Schmid, 1994. . A Meeting on Holiday. Amsterdam: NEROC'VGM, 2003. . Joachim Schmid. Photoworks 1982–2007. Brighton, UK: Photoworks, and Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2007. . Edited by Gordon MacDonald and John S. Weber. Lambe Lambe. Barcelona, and Mexico City: Editorial RM, 2014. . Ikea Sucks. Self-published, 2015.

Publications about Schmid Valtorta, Roberta. Joachim Schmid e le Fotografie Degli Altri. Milan: Johan & Levi, 2012. .