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Background information
"Arno SCHMIDT had always taken photographs: As a young man, in the 1930s and 1940s, private snapshots; then as a young author, in the 1950s, mainly optical notes, mnemonic devices in black and white for the settings of his novels.
But from 1964 on, his photos take on a new quality. With the use of a two-lens reflex camera and color slide films in the rare format of four by four centimeters, Schmidt's photography detaches itself from the function of a writing aid and becomes the medium of his art itself.
Content
In the two and a half thousand color slides that Arno SCHMIDT made in Bargfeld and the surrounding area until his death in 1979, his eye, trained by decades of observing the world, and his sense for structures, nuances, and details, trained by describing the world, become apparent. The selection of color slides in the out-of-print volume 'Vier mal vier. Photographs from Bargfeld' was made by Janos Frecot, one of the leading experts on photography, archivist, exhibition organizer, founder as well as long-time director of the 'Photographic Collection' of the Berlinische Galerie." (© Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003)