Free Choice / Conceptual Photography | Winner
Daniel Wetzel & Gregor Schuster
Darmstadt/Berlin 0
Supermodels
Concept
WETZEL & SCHUSTER are the photographers Daniel Wetzel from Berlin and Gregor Schuster from Darmstadt. WETZEL & SCHUSTER meet at regular intervals to realise artistic projects. They would like to take this as an opportunity to present a sample of their projects. The complete collection is made up of 15 images. Supermodels exposé: In this project, we deal with the iconographic illustration of the course of photographic history that played an essential role in our development as photographers. We analysed the constellation of photographers and models by changing places and assuming the role of the model. How does it feel to have to pose on demand and often act as a naked projection screen for the photographer’s ideas? How does it actually feel to be so closely scrutinised? Does perception change when the model is not only another gender, but also much older than the original? Are the formal-aesthetic criteria still strong enough to preserve the effect, despite switched roles? And all this with the consciousness of a future historical event in the ongoing history of photography. But above all, we wanted to honour all those wonderful (and often nameless) women for their invaluable contributions to photography. As this project is also an intellectual journey back in time, we decided to capture it all on already expired SX-70 Polaroid film. Not only to bring back the experience of the ‘decisive moment’, but also to establish an overriding aesthetic congruence for an entire collection of pictures from different epochs. A family album of photography itself.
Vita
Daniel Wetzel and Gregor Schuster, Darmstadt/Berlin
Daniel Wetzel, Berlin: 1983–85: Assistant to BFF photographer Rolf Frei; 1987: graduation from the Lette-Verein vocational education centre in Berlin, photography department; since 1987: freelance photographer; since 2004: tutor at the von Erlenbach Kunstschule art school in Berlin
Exhibitions/Contributions: Germanisches Nationalmuseum museum of cultural history in Nuremberg, DE 2011; The Browse Fotofestival, Berlin DE 2012; Palm Springs Photo Festival, US 2012; Rencontres D’Arles ,La Nuit de L’Année, FR 2012; Culture Shocks, Wolfsburg, DE 2013; Fotonoviembre 2013, Bienal Internacional de Fotografía de Tenerife, ES 2013
Gregor Schuster, Darmstadt: 1987: graduation from the Lette-Verein vocational education centre in Berlin, photography department; since 1987: freelance photographer; since 2005: curator of the Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie exhibition
Exhibitions/Contributions: Photonoviembre, Bienal Internacional de Fotografía de Tenerife, ES 2011; Palm Springs Photo Festival, US 2012; Rencontres D’Arles ,La Nuit de L'Année, FR 2012; Noorderlicht Photo Festival, NL 2012; Prix de la Photographie Paris (Gold Award), FR 2013; Fotonoviembre 2013, Bienal Internacional de Fotografía de Tenerife, ES 2013
Jury Statement
In their portfolio of self-portraits, the two photographers, Daniel Wetzel and Gregor Schuster, pay homage to and quote well-known icons of photography. Their work, SUPERMODELS, also reveals how our senses of perception can be altered by exchanging roles. The jury was convinced by their intellectual approach and the mischievously humorous realisation of their work.