BURKHARD, Balthasar

About Swiss photographer, Balthasar BURKHARD (1944-2010)

Balthasar BURKHARD began training with the Bernese photographer Kurt BLUM in the early 1960s. From the mid-1960s he photographed the contemporary art scene for Harald Szeemann, then director of the Bern Kunsthalle, and documented the Venice Biennale and the famous documenta 5. He became internationally known in 1969 with an exhibition of large-format photographs on canvas made in collaboration with the artist Markus Raetz. In 1976 he moves to the USA, teaches at the University of Illinois and has his first solo exhibition there. In the early 1980s he returns to Switzerland, collaborates with the architecture society 'Atelier 5', teaches at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes and releases his film 'La Ciudad' in 1998. Balthasar BURKHARD died in 2010 at the age of 65.

Photo books by and about Balthasar BURKHARD

• 'Lob des Schattens' (In Praise of Shadow, 1997); 'Click!, said the camera' (1999, 2018); 'Balthasar Burkhard' (2001); 'Omnia' (2004); 'Photographer' (2005); 'Scent of desire' (2009); 'Swiss Photobooks from 1927 to the Present: A Different History of Photography' (2011); 'Balthasar Burkhard' (2017, 2020)