Matthias Frehner – författare

Best known as the photographer for the 1990s “Marlboro Man” (as appropriated by Richard Prince), Hannes Schmid (born 1946) has been active for decades in various genres of photography--principally fashion, rock and documentary. Early on in his career, Schmid blurred the boundaries between commissioned projects and personal work, and by the 1970s, was focused simultaneously on documenting cannibal folk culture in Indonesia and making classic portraits of bands such as Kraftwerk, Queen, Blondie, Depeche Mode and AC/DC. The latter body of work, done between 1978 and 1984, effectively tells the story of rock music between these years; Schmid spent the best part of a decade on tour with over 250 bands. Soon after, he entered the worlds of fashion and advertising photography, producing his famous icon--the Marlboro cowboy--in 1993, a figure that reached mass audiences and later percolated up to the contemporary art scene thanks to its adoption by Richard Prince, in the artist’s later series of Marlboro appropriations. In addition to his photographic projects, Schmid’s work also comprises films and installation projects. Real Stories is published to coincide with a retrospective at Kunstmuseum Bern, and includes a large selection of Schmid’s photographic works--400 of which are reproduced in color--along with essays that contextualize his work and address his position as an artist working inside photography.

This is the first major exploration of the works of American abstract painter and watercolorist Suzan Frecon (b. 1941), critically acclaimed for her sensitive arrangement of color, form, and texture, and for the philosophical resonance of her art. By restricting herself to nonrepresentational forms, earth-based colors, and, in the case of her watercolors, “found” pieces of paper, Frecon achieves an unequaled sense of balance and openness in her work. The book features ten oil paintings and thirty watercolors dating from the late 1990s to 2007.   form, color, illumination celebrates the uniqueness of Frecon's painting and articulates how her work distinguishes itself within the history of abstract painting. The authors describe in-depth how her artistic process and materials are an integral part of her focus and aesthetic. Included is an essay revealing the "ethics” of her aesthetics––an argument for abstraction and an attention to truth that is not divorced from social and environmental concerns.Distributed for The Menil CollectionExhibition Schedule:The Menil Collection, Houston (March 6 – May 11, 2008)  Kunstmuseum Bern (June 11 – September 28, 2008)