On the occasion of the Beuys anniversary, the documenta archiv, as a guest of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, is curating a studio exhibition on the photographer Dieter Schwerdtle (1952-2009) in the rooms of the Neue Galerie. Schwerdtle's photographs of the action 7000 Eichen from 1982 continue to shape the collective Beuys image to this day. In addition to the artist figure Joseph Beuys and his Kassel actions, the presentation also focuses on other previously lesser-known groups of works, including views of documenta exhibitions 5 to 11 with surprising, sometimes hidden perspectives of actually well-known works of art.

Schwerdtle had studied photography with Floris M. Neusüß at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and had been working - among other things on behalf of the magazine Kunstforum International - as a documentary photographer in the city's artist and cultural scene since 1981. He liked to compare working on a photographic portrait with conducting a conversation. The intimacy of the gaze, the feeling for his counterpart combined with a playful approach to the artificial pose. This is as true for photographs of documenta artists such as Richard Serra, Jonathan Borofsky, or Ilya Kabakov as it is for other portrait series. The exhibition pays tribute to this hitherto little-known position of documentary artist photography with works from the Schwerdtle estate of the documenta archiv.

Click here for the press release.