-  Faculty Experts   -  News by Topic   -  News by School Search News & Info WUSTL in the News   - Powered by Google WUSTL Home Public Affairs Home University News Medical News Sports News Radio Service Business, Law & Econ Culture & Living Science & Technology Contact Information TV/Radio Studio Visiting Our Campuses Campus Images Sports photography Commercial Filming    and Photography Commercial Use of    Names and Symbols Domain Name policy Record (newspaper) Campus Calendars WUSTL News Summary Publications Online Facts, Guides & Maps		University News Contact: Liam Otten - (314) 935-8494 liam_otten@aismail.wustl.edu Photographs by retired Swiss police officer Arnold Odermatt at Washington University Gallery of Art March 11-April 20 [St. Louis, MO., 2-27-03] A minibus lies overturned, papers spilling in its wake. Battered vehicles commiserate at a deserted intersection. A Volkswagen Beetle sinks slowly into an otherwise pristine Alpine lake. Arnold Odermat, "Hergiswil, 1964," Gelatin silver print These haunting images are the work of Arnold Odermatt, a retired Swiss policeman whose photographs of accident scenes, though possessed of almost surreal beauty and clarity, have only recently come to the attention of the international art world. This spring, the Washington University Gallery of Art will present a rare U.S. exhibition of more than 30 black-and-white and color images by the now-septuagenarian wunderkind. Contemporary Projects: Arnold Odermatt Photographs opens with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, and remains on view through April 20. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and noon to 4:30 p.m. weekends. (The Gallery of Art is closed Mondays.) The exhibit is free and open to the public. The Gallery of Art is located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. For more information, call (314) 935-4523. Born in 1925 in the small Swiss town of Oberdorf, Odermatt originally trained as a baker and confectioner. In 1948, he joined the police force in Nidwalden, a remote, largely agrarian canton encompassing eleven small communities and, even today, fewer than 40,000 citizens. At the time, "accidents constituted the main occupation of police work," said Sabine Eckmann, Ph.D., curator of the Gallery of Art. "About 600 cars crowded the underdeveloped roads with an average of one car accident daily and about ten fatalities per year." Odermatt was the first officer in Switzerland to begin documenting these tragic scenes on film, creating two distinct bodies of work. Setting his tripod on the roof of a police van, he first shot a series of straightforward, documentary images to accompany accident reports and on-site police drawings. Hours later, when onlookers had gone and most traces of violence had been cleared away, he returned to make a final, more highly aestheticized portrait of the wrecked vehicles. Devoid of blood or victims, presented in crisp black-and-white, these latter images stand in marked contrast both to earlier "crime photography" -- Weegee's crowded tenement scenes of the 1930s and 40s, for example -- and to works by contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, whose acidly colored "car crash" paintings mimicked the garish sensationalism of tabloid scandal sheets. Arnold Odermat, "Buochs, 1965," Gelatin silver print. From the exhibition "Contemporary Projects: Arnold Odermatt Photographs" at the Gallery of Art March 11 through April 20 Odermatt, by emphasizing the "object character of the car," uniquely engaged "problems of a belated modernization caused by the invasion of the automobile into an agrarian area," Eckmann explained. Yet "rather than letting the shocks of modernity fragment his senses, Odermatt creates images of empathy and sensuality that seek to control yet, importantly, also admit the progress of modernization as it penetrated his locality." Odermatt's color photos, begun later in his career, focus on the activities of local police -- shooting exercises, parades and festivals, on the beach practicing CPR. "These photographs often served the function of promoting police work rather than documenting life in rural Switzerland," Eckmann noted. "Yet while they are obviously staged, they don't come across as formal or official. Caught in their time through design, fashion and equipment, they convey the particulars and arbitrariness of the everyday, its structures and its practices." Odermatt retired in 1990 with the rank of deputy commander. In 1993, however, his work was "discovered" by independent curator Beate Kemfert and a series of exhibitions in Switzerland and Germany soon followed. Most recently, Odermatt was featured in the 2001 Venice Biennial and in a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. At 7 p.m. Friday, March 14, Eckmann and Kemfert will lead a discussion of Odermatt's work for the Gallery of Art's Friday Forum Lecture Series. Cost is $10, including wine and appetizers. Reservations are required. For more information, call (314) 935-5490 or email wuga@aismail.wustl.edu. Support for Arnold Odermatt Photographs is provided by the PRO HELVETIA Arts Council of Switzerland, the St. Louis Printmarket and individual contributors.
News & Information Home  |   Office of Public Affairs  |   WUSTL Home Please contact us and let us know how we can assist you. Technical problems with this Web site? Please contact news_bugs@aismail.wustl.edu. Please review the WUSTL News & Information copyright/privacy policy.