Photography as Anti-Museum? Conflicting museological concepts in the work of Joachim Schmid

Abstract

When, in 1990, artist Joachim Schmid mobilized people who wanted to get rid of unwanted pictures to send them to the Institute for the Reprocessing of Used Photographs, an “official” institution responsible for gathering the First General Collection of Used Photographs, he was clearly overcoming the simple role of the “artist as curator” to assume another museum function as part of his artistic statement. Addressing the relationship between museums, contemporary art and photography, this paper further investigates the complementary ways by which Joachim Schmid has incorporated conflicting museological notions in his work, not only to question the established values and assumptions museums help validate, but also to challenge and reject the very art–museum relationship. Particular attention is devoted to materiality and to the ways by which photographic appropriation was able to resist the impacts of the digital revolution. While carefully looking at the particular work of artist Joachim Schmid, this text examines how art has learned to adapt to the new technological landscape, developing new ways for the photographic appropriation to survive. Finally, it also analyzes how the artist tries to oppose the museum, as a legitimating institution, by nevertheless activating institutionally charged artistic gestures.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank artist Joachim Schmid for the kind permission to reproduce the images of his artworks. A grateful word goes also to Prof. Elizabeth Edwards, for generously providing information and bibliography on Schmid’s intervention at the Pitt Rivers Museum. The author acknowledges financial support from FCT Portugal — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/79102/2011).

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Susana S. Martins

Susana S. Martins is an FCT-Portugal Research Fellow both at the Institute for Art History, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, and at the Institute for Cultural Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Trained as an art historian, she holds a PhD in photography and cultural studies and she works on the history and theory of photography, with a particular focus on travel books, exhibitions, visual arts, museum studies and national identities. Since 2008, Martins has also been lecturing in the fields of photography, art history and semiotics.