Arnold Odermatt is a celebrated Swiss police photographer whose work spanned more than 40 years. Originally trained as a baker, he was a photographer for the Nidwalden district police from 1948 until his retirement in 1990. He is best known for his eerily beautiful black-and-white photographs of the aftermaths of motor vehicle accidents.
Read MoreWith thoroughness and meticulous attention to detail, Arnold Odermatt photographed the often surreal occurrences in the life of a police officer. Car wrecks, highways and the surrounding landscape all blend into silent and uncanny pictures where the drivers have gone and the victims have been removed. All that is left are the wrecked cars that tell the stories of excessive speed, drunk driving, right-of-way errors and plain foolishness. The de-formed steel takes on a malleable quality. The cars become sculptures that show the sudden end to many hopes and dreams, the intrusion of the unforeseen into well-regulated daily life. What results from the picture-taking policeman's official work is a selection of melancholic, sometimes funny and always strange atmospheric photos of our mobile society.
In Karamboulage, his most famous series of work, you can't see the maimed victims but you do see the ethereal, surreal sculptures of scrap metal. With the softness and melancholy of Jacques Tati, he looks at the consequences of speed and the hectic nature of modern times. For 40 years, Arnold Odermatt captured the daily work of the Nidwalden police force. It was only rarely that the local press, the court or an insurance company were interested in his photos.
In 2001, Arnold Odermatt's work was selected by Harald Szeemann to be exhibited at the 49th Venice Biennale. Since then a large number of exhibitions celebrated the swiss photographer. His solo shows include the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Rhénan de la Photographie, Strasbourg, Kunstverein Heidelberg, and the Centre de la Photographie, Geneva
Text courtesy Buchmann Galerie.
