Fotograf Magazine

To say that Joachim Schmid is completely obsessed with photography is a fair and accurate statement. He himself suspects that “few people in the world have looked at more photographs” than he has. At one point he counted: he had looked at 10,000 photographs in one day alone. And he has maintained his manic pace since embarking on his career as a “professional looker” in the 1980s.

Using other people’s (often mundane) photographs, he creates artwork that is alluring, intriguing, and captivating. He is very much a modern day anthropologist who tries to understand contemporary cultures by studying its visual garbage.