EIN SOLO MIT ARNOLD ODERMATT
June 1 – July 15, 2024

ARNOLD ODERMATT
Hergiswil, 1973
# 1115
Gelatin silver print
40 x 30 cm

Oberdorf, 1973
# 1487
Gelatine silver print
40 x 30 cm

&
SOLO
Moped 725, 1976

Arnold Odermatt, (1925 – 2021) was a Swiss police officer and photographer. Odermatt joined the Nidwalden police force in 1948 and in 1990 retired with the rank of First Lieutenant, Head of the Traffic Police and Deputy Commander of the Nidwalden police. He photographed accident scenes to which he was called with a Rolleiflex in order to supplement the police report with photos. He set up a makeshift darkroom in an old toilet at the police station in Stans. When the police station moved to a new building years later, Switzerland’s perhaps first police photographer was given his own laboratory. At the start of the 1990s, his son, the film director Urs Odermatt, was researching for a film when he discovered decades of archived photographs. Impressed by the quality of the work, he became the editor of all Arnold Odermatt’s books.
Odermatt´s was selected by Harald Szeemann for the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2002 they were shown at The Art Institute of Chicago and in 2004 at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, international solo and group exhibitions followed. The works of Arnold Odermatt are in numerous international collections and are displayed at a number of international museums.