Inside Cairo :
Michael Von Graffenried

June 15th - July 15th, 2012

The work of Swiss artist, Michael von Graffenried has attracted increasing recognition in the contemporary art world, though he originally gained acclaim as a documentary photographer. While the artist has stated that he seeks to “show the reality of today” in other words to record and show what is there with complete objectivity, he has chosen subjects and developed techniques that have allowed his practice to gradually emerge as something far more than simple recording of reality. Indeed, von Graffenried has developed a personal and penetrating body of work that has taken itself far beyond the criteria of press photography. Each image stands on its own as a revealing microcosm of the societies and communities in which humans exist, and this has been made possible, as we shall see, by the photographer’s efforts to “disappear” – to be an invisible eye in the midst of humanity.

Building on this experience, Michael von Graffenried’s works realized in Algeria and Cairo represented a further development in his desire as an artist to get inside these particular societies where photographers were viewed with great suspicion, which itself demanded solutions enabling him to take photographs unnoticed. In order to do this, von Graffenried began using a small panoramic Widelux camera, that he could hold discreetly on his chest, operating it without his subjects being aware of his actions. Functioning in this way allowed the artist the great advantage of creating images that totally removed the relation between the photographer and people being photographed. Robert Fleck has commented on this, saying that “The whole distance that photography traditionally established between the camera and the subject is reduced”, and that in developing this fusion of his desire to capture reality, with the technical demands of achieving it (ie: by hiding his actions), von Graffenried has arrived at a “true form of language, a new kind of photography”.

Riot Police, 2007, photographic c-print on dibond,
112.5 x 49 in, (286 x 125 cm) 1/3