In Berlin, a retrospective of one of Germany’s most influential photographers

Daniel Berndt | Aperture | 28th September 2020

Schmidt started by photographing his Berlin neighbourhood. That style – factual, black and white images – stuck. He spent 25 years making images of the commonplace – “empty lots, murky puddles, distressed brickwork”. They reveal a Berlin trying to shrug off the burden of history. Schmidt was a “lodestar of postwar photography in Germany … unideological, [and his work] offers a rich vocabulary without being anecdotal.”