Published by Marsilio Arte. Edited by Mario Codognato.
Originally published by Steidl in 2008, this updated edition of the Controfacciata project by German photographer Matthias Schaller (born 1965) features new images from his series documenting the portegos of Venetian palazzi from the medieval and early modern eras.
This volume is a retrospective of Matthias Schaller's (born 1965) photography, presenting all his major bodies of work from the last 13 years, such as the series Studio Gursky (2000), documenting Andreas Gursky's Düsseldorf studio, and Die Mühle (2001-2), showing the studio-home of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Presenting thumbnail images of numerous series and a bibliography, this book is the perfect entry point to Schaller's oeuvre.
For the last three years--during the pontificates of both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI-- Matthias Schaller has gone inside the Vatican to photograph the rarely seen offices of the Roman Catholic cardinals. Using fifteenth-century iconography as a model, such as the portraits of cardinals Saint Hieronymus and Saint Augustine by Vittore Carpaccio, Schaller combines Renaissance tradition with the technology and conventions of contemporary art--for his works are portraits without a sitter. In this absorbing monograph, his subjects are revealed through our entrée into their intimate chambers and through the subtle differences of their attendant accessories, forcing viewers to confront our own assumptions about who these men really are. It perhaps comes as no surprise that Schaller, who was born in Germany and now splits his time between New York and Venice, studied cultural anthropology before embarking on his career in photography.
Published by Steidl & Partners. Text by Richard Dyer.
German-born photographer Matthias Schaller discovered the architectural phenomenon of the controfacciata (counter-façade)--a sort of hall or corridor built out from the first floor of a building--while exploring the palaces along the edges of Venice's canals. From 2004 to 2007, he centered his lens on the twilit windows inside these spaces, which imbue the musty elegance of the busts, furniture and paintings that fill them with an ethereal glow, while simultaneously muting all color. In this series, made in the quarter between Ponte di Rialto and Piazza San Marco, Schaller captures the faded grandeur of earlier days, offering tantalizing glimpses of passages that lead to unknown rooms and silent histories. The photographs were made from a direct elevation perspective, highlighting the length of space between Schaller's camera and the light-flooded windows that lead to the water's edge. Controfacciata presents an original view of this city, imbued with the haunting tension and the bittersweet paradox that is Venice.
Andreas Beyer says of artists' workplaces, "Places where important works were created have always been fascinating one is immediately on the hunt for clues of the persona and the greatness of what has been made there, trying to locate them on the desk, the walls, the chairs, even in the curtains." The Mill documents the living and working spaces of Hilla and Bernd Becher, a former paper mill in Düsseldorf where the couple lived from 1961 to 2003. Matthias Petrus Schaller, (who was born in 1965, well after the Bechers first moved into this space) made these photographs in their last years there, between February 2001 and September 2002.
Matthias Schaller
Matthias Schaller: Purple Desks
Matthias Schaller: Controfacciata
Matthias Petrus Schaller: The Mill